White House's WMD retreat weakens Blair

[hedgetrimmer]

~snip~

CHRIS MARKS
DEPUTY FOREIGN EDITOR


• Pressure mounts on Blair as White House position on WMD shifts
• White House awaits Iraq survey group report to 'learn the truth'
• Hutton report into Dr David Kelly's death is published tomorrow

Key quote: "We want to compare the intelligence before the war with what the Iraq Survey Group learns on the ground" White House press secretary Scott McLellan.

Story in full: THE White House last night signalled a further dramatic retreat on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction as it dropped the repeated assertion that banned weapons would be found in Iraq.

The admission adds to the mounting pressure on Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Hutton Report tomorrow, and raises more questions about the reasons why the Prime Minister joined George Bush, the US president, in going to war.

Colin Powell, the United States Secretary of State, conceded on Saturday that stocks of banned weapons might never be found in Iraq, after David Kay, a former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, said the failure to find such armaments led him to conclude that they did not exist.

Asked if the US still believed there were banned weapons in Iraq, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, did not repeat past statements that they would be found.

... more ...

link: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=100192004

on edit: forgot the link...

[BattyDem]

1. Looks like Tony's being hung out to dry ...

Gee, what a surprise :eyes:

[madrchsod]

2. tony who? never heard of him...

i bet the queen would love to slap the crap out of blair....

[candy331]

3. Seems like he might wind up

being Bush's poodle after all. He took a gamble and seems like he is going to be the loser.

[PaDUer]

5. Of course,,,

he's been "had".

[Democat]

4. Blair will be taken care of financially no matter what happens

Like Howard in Australia, these guys are doing the most important work in the world for the biggest money guys in the world. They will be taken care of one way or another by the right wing for the rest of their lives.