Posted on 05/29/2003 9:33:31 AM PDT by Brian S
29 May 2003
Tony Blair stood accused last night of misleading Parliament and the British people over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and his claims that the threat posed by Iraq justified war.
Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, seized on a "breathtaking" statement by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war, and anger boiled over among MPs who said the admission undermined the legal and political justification for war.
Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction".
But Mr Cook said the Prime Minister's claims that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes were patently false. He added that Mr Rumsfeld's statement "blows an enormous gaping hole in the case for war made on both sides of the Atlantic" and called for MPs to hold an investigation.
Meanwhile, Labour rebels threatened to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for the cardinal sin of misleading Parliament - and force him to answer emergency questions in the House.
Mr Rumsfeld ignited the row in a speech in New York, declaring: "It is ... possible that they [Iraq] decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict and I don't know the answer."
Speaking in the Commons before the crucial vote on war, Mr Blair told MPs that it was "palpably absurd" to claim that Saddam had destroyed weapons including 10,000 litres of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin and "a host of other biological poisons".
But Mr Cook said yesterday: "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war has finished and we have still not found anything.
"It is plain he did not have that capacity to threaten us, possibly did not have the capacity to threaten even his neighbours, and that is profoundly important. We were, after all, told that those who opposed the resolution that would provide the basis for military action were in the wrong.
"Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right."
Speaking as he flew into Kuwait before a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq today, Mr Blair said: "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists.
"We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."
He added: "Our priorities in Iraq are less to do with finding weapons of mass destruction, though that is obviously what a team is charged with doing, and they will do it, and more to do with humanitarian and political reconstruction."
Peter Kilfoyle, the anti-war rebel and former Labour defence minister, said he was prepared to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for misleading Parliament. Mr Kilfoyle, whose Commons motion calling on Mr Blair to publish the evidence backing up his claims about Saddam's arsenal has been signed by 72 MPs, warned: "This will not go away. The Government ought to publish whatever evidence they have for the claims they made."
Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "No weapons means no threat. Without WMD, the case for war falls apart. It would seem either the intelligence was wrong and we should not rely on it, or, the politicians overplayed the threat. Even British troops who I met in Iraq recently were sceptical about the threat posed by WMD. Their lives were put at risk in order to eliminate this threat - we owe it to our troops to find out if that threat was real."
But Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "I think it is too early to rush to any conclusions at this stage; we must wait and see what the outcome actually is of these investigations."
Ministers have pointed to finds of chemical protection suits and suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories as evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological capability. But they have also played down the importance of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, provoked a storm of protest after claiming weapons finds were "not crucially important".
The Government has quietly watered down its claims, now arguing only that the Iraqi leader had weapons at some time before the war broke out.
Tony Benn, the former Labour minister, told LBC Radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes."
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said MPs "supported war based on a lie". He said: "If it's right Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq complied with the United Nations resolution 1441."
The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson added: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground."
The build-up to war: What they said
Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons
George Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003
We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd
Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit
Tony Blair 28 April, 2003
It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict
Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003
No, it actually reinforces my assertion. This is exactly why the U.S. was willing to wage war against a nation whose "weapons program" consists of a few mobile labs and old protective suits, but calls for "multi-lateral discussions" with a nation that has a weapons program that represents a legitimate threat.
A third-rate dictator of a country like Iraq is called a "rogue leader" and a "modern Hitler," and he wears a black beret and a military uniform. When this same guy truly becomes the threat that he was made out to be, he wears a $3,000 Armani suit and his country becomes a "most favored nation" for trade with the U.S.
Frankly, I think you have a fair point here. It's clear to me that one reason for selecting Iraq as a target was that it was politically feasible using the "UN resolutions / WMDs" angle. But that doesn't mean that the US was wrong to assert that Iraq was in violation of the resolutions, possessed WMDs, etc. And it doesn't mean the critics are correct to say that the US was wrong to enforce the resolutions or that absence of evidence (of WMDs) is evidence of absence (which is what the critics seem to be saying, and pretending that they believe).
For civilians in the U.S., Iraq was never the biggest threat from such an attack.
Please pass along the elaborate methodology and mathematical equations by which you have calculated this Threatness-Level thing which you seem to think you have precisely measured for Iraq and all other nations.
So when some militant Islamic jackass from Yemen or Pakistan claims that the Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., you'r telling me that the burden is on Israel to prove that they were not?
Red herring. There is no UN resolution requiring Israel to document lack of involvement in 9/11, which I'm aware of anyway. (You never know with the UN ;-)
You can't complain about "phony rules" in this context, since they were put in place at the behest of the U.S. after the first Gulf War.
First of all, I can complain about anything I want ;-) Second, I don't necessarily agree with the US's approach to things in 1991, which is what you seem to be talking about (setting up the sanctions regime, etc). Third, just because some rules were put in place "at the behest of" the US does not mean they weren't undermined, exploited, etc by countries like France. Fourth, the "phony rules" I was actually talking about were not from '91 in the first place, but specifically, last year's Resolution 1441 which passed unanimously based on the votes of countries like France which never had any intention whatsoever of enforcing it (that's what I meant by "phony"). and, so on.
The most current version of the events surrpounding the first Gulf War was that President Bush essentially laid out to Iraq all the elements of a U.S. response to a WMD attack ..
Ok so if I read you correctly you're agreeing with me that it was silly of you to claim the US would never put troops in proximity to a nation which it knew to have WMDs, since you seem to admit that they did so in '91. And by the way, don't you think the US issued the exact same kind of warning to Iraq in this war? So, your claimed reason for pretending to believe that Iraq had no WMDs ("the US wouldn't have put troops there if they did") is demolished.
[child molester example] You certainly don't let your children play there, but do you burn the guy's house to the ground? Maybe you do -- But if I were so certain that this was necessary, I'd be burning the police station to the ground, too.
Good idea! (In this context "police station" = UN, right?)
This might be a valid point, but it will hold absolutely no water with me until Bill Clinton is spending the rest of his life in Leavenworth for dereliction of duty. If what you have said is true, then Bill Clinton was a bigger threat to this country than Saddam Hussein was.
For crying out loud -- the same nation that considered it such a "moral imperative" to topple Saddam Hussein can't even muster the outrage to take this f#cker's pension away from him.
Ah. You are looking for an excuse to do nothing.
I never found anyone willing to accept their end of a proposed bet on this issue. Curious...
If you were wrong about Iraq having WMDs, then you'd SURELY have no problem accepting the mission of cleaning up the consequences of a WMD attack against the United States...
...without protective gear of any sort.
Congratulations on your elastic use of facts. This was your claim:
Anyone who truly believes that the United States government would have placed thousands of U.S. military personnal in close proximity to Iraq if there was any chance in hell that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" is naive.
And when presented with a fact that hosed that point, you shifted to this:
s exactly why the U.S. was willing to wage war against a nation whose "weapons program" consists of a few mobile labs and old protective suits, but calls for "multi-lateral discussions" with a nation that has a weapons program that represents a legitimate threat.
Sorry, but for your original point to be true, the United States would be removing all troops from Korea.
Since you obviously aren't the least bit interested in honest debate, I won't bother with you any more.
The accusations have been made by the UN since 1991. The US and UK have acted on behalf of the UN. It was a UN member state, Iraq, who obfuscated, obstructed, and disobeyed the UN for 12 years, not the US or UK. And, since the weapons have most likely been hidden in neighboring Arab countries, that's where we should look.
Looks like all sides of the argument are on this thread!
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Well, then maybe we shouldn't have given Saddam 12 years to hide the weapons. In any case, he had the weapons in 1991, and since signing the Gulf War cease fire, openly agreed to disarm, and did not -- for 12 years. 16 UN resolutions accused him of failing to disarm, not just the UN and Britain, which acted on the UN's behalf. (Remember the 15-0 vote on Res. 1441?)
Yes, I suppose we should have been able to surveil the entire span of Iraq's borders for 12 years as he moved and/or hid the weapons from the UN and allied forces.
I'm not even arguing that point. My whole rationale here is that the U.S. not only must make a legitimate case about these facts (which we did, at least to my satisfaction), but that a very compelling case must be made that military action resulting in the overthrow of a government is the only means of dealing with the issue. The fact that this government felt a need to resort to such PR tactics to sell the public on the war tells me that they couldn't make a compelling case on the facts alone.
Please pass along the elaborate methodology and mathematical equations by which you have calculated this Threatness-Level thing which you seem to think you have precisely measured for Iraq and all other nations.
Those anthrax letters were mailed right here in the U.S., and the anthrax could just as easily have been produced here as anywhere else in the world. And the Tokyo sarin gas attack that was mentioned in another post (and prompted my response) involved a chemical agent that could have been produced anywhere, too.
And by the way, don't you think the US issued the exact same kind of warning to Iraq in this war? So, your claimed reason for pretending to believe that Iraq had no WMDs ("the US wouldn't have put troops there if they did") is demolished.
That's really my point. If the U.S. could issue this kind of ultimatum to Iraq to keep them from using WMDs on our troops, then the U.S. could have issued the same ultimatum to allow unfettered access to U.S. weapons inspectors without putting all those soldiers and ships over there. If Tom Clancy wrote a novel with a story line like this, he'd be out of business tomorrow.
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