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| Britain | |
| Blair: I have secret proof of weapons | |
| 2003-06-01 | |
| Prime Minister Tony Blair last night insisted he had secret proof that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq in his strongest signal yet that coalition forces believe they may have begun to uncover leads to Iraq's alleged deadly arms cache. Dear God, Tony, don't screw this up. Stung by claims that the Government exaggerated the threat from Saddam, Blair said he was waiting to publish a 'complete picture' of both intelligence gained before the war and 'what we've actually found'. Is he going to pull a GWB? Asked if he knew things he could not yet reveal, he said: 'I certainly do know some of the stuff that has been already accumulated as a result of interviews and others... which is not yet public, but what we are going to do is assemble that evidence and present it properly.' His words, in an interview with Sky TV, came as Downing Street moved to halt damaging leaks over its handling of the evidence by heaping praise on the intelligence services. 'The Prime Minister hugely values the work of the intelligence agencies,' his spokesman said in St Petersburg, where heads of state were celebrating the Russian city's tercententary, yesterday.
I don't think Tony would screw the Intel boys over. I hope not. Labour backbenchers, increasingly convinced they were We always knew it was important. In Britain it is thought that Ministers want eventually to publish a checklist of claims made before the war alongside subsequent discoveries which they believe vindicate the warnings. So far the only publicly announced discovery has been that of two trailers thought to have been part of a mobile laboratory system. Blair said in his interview that claims that the existence of WMD was 'a great big fib got out by the security services' would be proved wrong. He said he had 'absolutely no knowledge' of an alleged meeting between the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw and his US counterpart Colin Powell, in a New York hotel to discuss concerns over whether the evidence on WMD would be strong enough. Leaked transcripts suggested Straw had warned the issue could 'explode in our faces'. That could be an entirely innocent meeting (if it happened). I would think Straw and Powell would demand to see all the data and would review it with a skeptical eye. After all, they have to defend it. The Foreign Office insisted the two men had not met on the date given in February. Should be simple enough to check the calendars. Downing Street has been hampered in its argument by repeated suggestions from the Bush administration that WMD may never be found. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy to the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, suggested last week that WMD were a bureaucratic pretext to start a war. No, he didn't, and you can read the full transcript of what he said here. Wolfie pointed out all three reasons why we went into Iraq, but of course the pundits seized on only one and took it out of context. Blair told Sky that WMD were the basis in law for taking military action - but 'that's not the same as saying it's a bureaucratic pretext'. Exactly. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 Agents such as VX are binary agents:2seperate chemicals that by themselves are relativlyharmless,but when combined are deadly.Maintaingy them is not difficult as long as the components are seperate. ex.chlorine+amonia=chlorine gas |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-06-03 08:24:56 |
| #7 why would sammy play the games he did if Iraq didnt have weapons - one theory Ive heard, based on what we're learning about the kind of state this was, is that sammy THOUGHT he had the weapons - his scientists werent (for technical reasons) able to maintain a weapons inventory - and they were scared to let the higher ups know that they had failed - seeing that the consequnces were likely death - and so they fudged it. Not sure if that really makes any sense (how hard would it really have been for them to make and maintain VX?) but its an interesting thought, nonetheless. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-06-02 08:00:13 |
| #6 Ugly, real ugly. Assuming that there *is* highly sensitive, close-hold information concerning the existence of WMD that hasn't been released, chances are it's so tightly held that quite a few of the people you'd normally have to vet such information haven't seen it, which means that parts of it may not quite have the bang apparently promised. OTOH, it could be that the substance of the various arguments made were verified on many points, and that, in their eagerness to skewer their political opponents, certain officials are choosing to ignore information they already possess, in which case, bringing it to their attention won't shut them up. |
| Posted by: Ray 2003-06-01 23:02:46 |
| #5 The debate has now gone from antiquities thefts, not caring about mass graves, etc to WMD. I'm concerned too that they have not been found yet, although, what about the materials found in the river at the beginning of the war? All the barrels of questionable materials? The two bio labs? In any case, Clinton and UN said he had them when inspectors left in 98; there were no documents stating WMD had been disposed of in the meantime; Saddam had handlers stuck to Inspectors prior to war. So what are we to think? He doesn't have them? Dr Khidir Hamza said they were there and that's good enough for me. They've been moved, destroyed, extra buried, whatever. The debate for this week is WMD; in a fortnight, who knows? |
| Posted by: Michael 2003-06-01 21:17:22 |
| #4 I bet the weapons are buried--probably somewhere outside Damascus, along with the Iraqi treasury! The latter awaiting transfer to the secretive Swiss banks/gnomes/Nazi collaborators "Vhat gold? Ve know nothink" |
| Posted by: Not Mike Moore 2003-06-01 12:18:24 |
| #3 It's pretty damned hard to dispute- as some seem to be trying to do- that Saddam ever had WMD; after all, he did use them, during the Iran/Iraq war and later on his own Kurdish population. So those who parrot the "Bush and Blair lied to us" argument are forgetting- or deliberately ignoring- the blatantly obvious. They're also ignoring the fact that Bill Clinton also cited Saddam's WMD in justifying his own policy of regime change in Iraq (they do remember, don't they, that was Clinton's policy? Clinton just didn't act on it, while Bush did), so if they want to accuse Bush of lying they also have to figure out how to accuse their beloved Slick Willie of lying, too. "Did Saddam have WMD?" is not the question. The question is, "What happened to Saddam's WMD?" Getting an answer is important, but not for the purpose of knowing whether Bush was lying; we all know perfectly well, or ought to, that he wasn't. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2003-06-01 10:14:03 |
| #2 I agree that Sammy had them, and can't believe that he got rid of them all. At this point I'm going with the Bush strategy to pull the war opponents into the "you lied to us about the WMD" argument at the top of their lungs, then produce the evidence. Dr Germ should be a show and tell on her own. Probably no nukes, but real chem and bio weapons will be found |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-06-01 07:32:08 |
| #1 It doesn't matter if the weapons were destroyed just before the war or not(why all the obstruction of the inspectors if they didn't have them).There were plenty of other reasons! Anybody who doubts he had them is a fool! |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-06-01 06:52:26 |