Prove Iraqi guilt, MPs tell Blair Nicholas Watt, Michael White, James Meek in Baghdad and Oliver Burkeman in Washington Saturday April 19, 2003 Tony Blair is facing the threat of a fresh rebellion from Labour backbenchers who are growing increasingly alarmed that the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will confirm that the war was illegal. As a 1,000-strong Anglo-American task force of inspectors prepares to search hundreds of suspicious sites, Labour MPs are demanding an inquiry to establish whether MI6 misled ministers about Iraq's weapons programme. Backbench Labour MPs who feel they were duped into backing the war on the basis of questionable intelligence want the cross-party Commons intelligence and security committee to carry out an investigation. One well-placed former minister said: "The intelligence committee is raring to challenge the veracity of what the security services told them about Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons. They were told what he had and where it was. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for all this, but they don't seem to be able to find the stuff." Britain and the US are so desperate to uncover a 'smoking gun' to justify the war against Iraq that they have drawn up a list of 146 sites to be inspected in Iraq. A team of civilian scientists and military forces, dubbed Usmovic because they are a US-led rival to the UN's Unmovic inspection force, will interview up 5,000 Iraqi scientists. US forces have begun to interrogate General Amir al-Saadi, the head of Iraq's weapons programme, who surrendered last weekend. But General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Gulf, attempted to lower expectations when he warned that it may take a year to uncover details of Iraq's arsenal. Such comments are causing alarm in the Commons. Lindsay Hoyle, the Labour MP for Chorley, who voted in favour of war because of Mr Blair's chilling warnings about Iraq's banned weapons, said: "We were led to believe that the Iraqis could fire them within 45 minutes. If that was the case where have they vanished to? We were told there was hard evidence." David Hinchliffe, chairman of the Commons health committee, said: "For many of us who talked to ministers there was an implication that more was known. Therefore a lot of people are anxious to establish the truth." His remarks were echoed by the former defence minister Doug Henderson, who warned that the war would in retrospect be deemed illegal if no banned weapons were found, because the military action was taken under UN resolutions calling for Iraq to disarm. "If by the turn of the year there is no WMD then the basis on which this was executed was illegal," he said. MPs are also starting to ask questions about the conduct of the intelligence services. They want to see the evidence that persuaded members of the Commons intelligence committee to back government efforts to win round waverers before the war began. One MP is telling committee members: "You kept saying you wished you could tell us, so now will you tell us?" Critics suspect that Downing Street may have hyped up the intelligence reports about Iraq's banned weapons. They point to last month's resignation speech by Robin Cook, in which the former foreign secretary said: "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term." Such doubts were echoed yesterday by a three-star Iraqi general who told the Guardian in Baghdad that the country had purged itself completely of weapons of mass destruction after the 1991 Gulf war. The general, who worked in the chemical weapons section of the Iraqi military for more than 30 years and asked not to be identified, insisted that gas masks, anti-contamination suits and atropine injectors had been intended to protect Iraqis rather than for offensive use. "We do not have any kind of forbidden weapons," he said. Describing the use of chemical weapons by Iraq against Iran in the 1980s as "abnormal", he said the country had possessed weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent against its neighbours. "If I have nerve gas and I know the Americans have a better version, it would be stupid of me to use it against them," he said. "The concept of having this kind of weapon was just to try to protect ourselves against others who had them, like the Israelis and the Iranians." The doubts about Iraq's WMD programme mean that some Labour MPs will be sceptical even if a 'smoking gun' is uncovered. Mr Hinchliffe said there was a "cynical view" among Labour MPs that the coalition inspectors will doctor the evidence. Britain wants to reassure critics by appointing an international body on the lines of the Northern Ireland disarmament commission to verify any weapons finds. But the former cabinet minister Gavin Strang said the coalition should go all the way by allowing UN inspectors back into Iraq. "I do not understand why we have not been able to allow Hans Blix to go back in," he said.
I am sick to dead Msfe from you continuing to post cur and paste jobs without entering into a discussion. >> .............................that the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will confirm that the war was illegal.<< The way I see things, the US and Great Brittain went in, not because of Iraq having WMD but because of well justified s-u-s-p-i-c-i-o-n-s that Iraq had them. Another good enough reason to take action was because Saddam was destabilising the Middle East area by encouraging terrorism with his reward for suicide bomb system. And as far as the general's statement is concerned ( "We do not have any kind of forbidden weapons,"), I wouldn't be too hasty to accept his word as gospel. And as far as the statement "I do not understand why we have not been able to allow Hans Blix to go back in," is concerned, if you knew Mr Blix a bit better you would know that he is not capable of doing his job justice because of his well displayed characteristic of not wanting to offend anyone which makes him a dithering ..... freealways
Freealways, why do you step into the trap which kymarfuc or whatever he calls himself here has laid out for simpletons like you: this war is illegal, because even by the highly respectable way criminals are treated in the US , they need to be considered not guilty until proven otherwise. So on the mere suspicion that they had some WMD (where would they have got them from? The US kept the receipts?) the US and their allies (shame on Blair!!! And shame on John Howard!!!) have given the coup de grace to a country which once was a very well to do economy. The pictures of the kid who lost both his arms will hopefully haunt the likes of Blair and Bush until they die. What more original thought do you want MSFE to bring forward than telling those yankee dimwits in their own language (I understand he is Swiss and possibly does not speak English as well as you do) how disgustingly wrong they are? Translate that article into German? Or French? Or Italian? Or any other language and pretend he wrote it himself? I liked watching how the Brits arrested those bankrobbers in Bagdad to the cheers of some onlookers: can you please tell me on the basis of which law they effected those arrests and what exactly the charges will be? You see, the situation is like this: a robber breaks into a house, only to find that one of his colleagues had arrived before him. Now he does not like that and "arrests" the other fellow, then takes him to his house and "charges" him. Shall we say 10 years? So your British or US troups are policemen, prosecuters, judges and jailors at a time. Some justice! And you are still surprised the Iraqis carry signs saying "Get out"?
Roe, if the aim is to bring calm and stability to a country wouldn't it have been illogical for the soldiers to have stood by silently to a bank being robbed or a building being put on fire ? There is no choice other than to put anyone who appears to thwarth that purpose of achieving calm and stability temporarily out of action. Yes Msfe may well be unable to express himself clearly enough in the english language to get his point accross and this may well be the very reason he resorts to cut and paste rather than dialog. He must however have a sufficient grasp and command of the english language to know which article to cut and paste in response to another post. However, anyone who exasperates others the way he does has little or no chance of convincing them of his logic and winning them over to his way of looking at the situation and he may well in fact be doing his cause (the welfare of the Iraqi people) a great disservice. If Msfe still has not woken up to that fact I will leave it to you to decide what that does make him ? freealways
The US Army has discovered more than six hundred million dollars in cash at an abandoned estate of Hussein's. So, please remind us all again that it was the US' fault that the oil for food sanctions were causing starvation among the Iraqis. Fools.......
Where are the weapons? The UN must lead the search Leader Tuesday April 22, 2003 The Guardian Tony Blair may have won the war, but he is in danger of losing the peace. This country did not go to war in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The fact that Mr Blair inserted that objective into his national address at the start of the conflict and the fact that Saddam's overthrow is overwhelmingly welcome do not alter that fact. Britain went to war in order to enforce UN resolutions that require Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. This was the issue on which UN resolution 1441 was drafted and adopted last year. This was the basis on which Britain tried to get the UN to adopt a second resolution in February and March. This was the basis on which parliament, in its historic March 18 vote this year, authorised military action. And this was also the basis of the attorney general's legal authority to the government to carry out an otherwise dubious invasion. The enforcement of the international mandated crackdown on WMD is absolutely at the heart of the whole Iraq crisis. It is the reason British troops are in Iraq. It is not some passing pretext which can be picked up or discarded according to convenience. It is therefore of more than academic importance to demand to know where Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and missiles are, and to demand that the UN should now continue to carry out its work of inspection to find them. That the Bush administration does not share these concerns has been intermittently clear through the course of the past few months. It is not anti-American to say that the United States clearly had its own reasons for invading Iraq. None of this, though, absolves the British government from abiding by and being held to its own responsibilities in terms of law, treaties and politics. Those responsibili ties are to ensure that the UN continues to be at the heart of the international weapons inspection process. The security council's mandate was not undone by the US invasion of Iraq. It still remains legitimate and in force, and it is just as vital for international security and legality that that mandate is enforced now that the war has taken place, as it was beforehand. Britain has no interest whatever in the unilateral promotion of alternative enforcement and inspection procedures, especially procedures about which the rest of the world will rightly and inevitably be more sceptical. British ministers may or may not have lost confidence in Hans Blix, but Mr Blix is the properly authorised head of the only legitimate WMD inspection process in existence. It will take time, agreement and effort to carry out a full and credible inventory of Iraq's WMD capability. No one should assume that, somewhere in Iraq, there is a gleaming, functioning row of weaponised missiles that has somehow not yet been spotted. The truth is more complicated and it will require patience to discover it. MPs and others who suspect they have been sold a turkey on WMD need to contain themselves and not act prematurely. Nevertheless, this invasion was sold to the British people on the basis of a genuine threat from Iraqi weapons and missiles to international peace and security. Britain's participation in America's missile defence plans is being sold on exactly the same basis. We are fully entitled to know whether the threat actually exists. We are entitled to know whether the situation in Iraq is as we were told. And we are entitled to expect that the inspection process has been carried out and verified by people and international agencies whom we can trust.
This Guardian article is some comedy parody, right? The British people don't trust the Blair government to tell them the truth about WMD? But they do trust the discredited Annan/Blix crowd? Hilarious.
In a nut shell. Overnight MSNBC, FOX and others to follow. UN OIL for FOOD PROGRAM (Iraq Sanctions) Was nothing more than a CASH FLOW program for Saddam, Kofi, Russia, and France. UN take on the deal 2.5% on Billions in Iraqi Oil Contracts. Russia and France the main contractors. Secret Accounting, the UN books are closed. Lots of money spent on goods that have no relationship with food. For the UN it was all about OIL, Money, and skimming cash, and not about food at all.
the whole world trust Annan and Blix - and nobody trusts the totally discredited Bush/Cheney & Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz crowds