How Blair defied logic and intelligence to take us to war

[T_i_B]

Article detailing Blair's spin, flip-flops and outright pokies on Iraq. Make of this what you will.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=443171

When the dust settles on the Hutton inquiry, when the family of Dr David Kelly are free to grieve in private, when Mr Campbell has left Downing Street, and the career prospects of Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon and BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan have been clarified, that September dossier will still lurk as a political question.

Most of the dossier repeated what was already known to anyone who had been following the Iraq crisis closely. The promise of startling new revelations drawn from the secret files of British intelligence did not seem to have produced anything much, except a repetition of a much disputed claim that Iraq was seeking to construct a nuclear bomb, and a startling sentence in the executive summary at the front. It read: "Iraq has military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons ... Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them."

That was the headline-grabber, the stark image that stuck in the mind - that fearful weapons could be unleashed suddenly, without warning, on any of Iraq's neighbours. It was spotted almost immediately by an expert in the Irish Republic's Department of Foreign Affairs, when a British diplomat arrived in Iveagh House with a copy of the dossier, hoping it would secure Ireland's vital vote on the UN Security Council. Their specialist instantly dismissed it as utterly unbelievable, for technical and political reasons.

Six months after the overthrow of Saddam, none of this stuff has turned up, and the US administration appears to have abandoned any pretence that it ever will. However, for weeks after the occupation of Baghdad, Mr Blair clung to the belief that it was hidden away somewhere. In June, he was emphasising that the Iraq Survey Force had only just begun its thorough search, and must be given time. Then, as time passed, he amended his forecast, saying that the inspectors were sure to find evidence of "weapons programmes" rather than battle-ready weapons. This month, he refined that still further, saying at his first press conference after the summer break: "I have no doubt at all - I have been in this position all the way through - that they will find evidence that those programmes were continuing well after Iraq was saying that they had been discontinued and shut down."

[ClintonTyree]

1. Blair and Bush...................

are equally adroit at back pedaling. From weapons that could be deployed in as little as 45 minutes, to proof that they were contemplating these weapons. Somehow they expect us to believe that these statements mean exactly the same thing. There's a special place in hell for both of them.

[punpirate]

3. It also shows that their stories...

... have been adjusted to reflect the latest spin (and each other's version) at remarkably similar times.

The US press will never do it, but I suspect that someone in the UK press will be charting who said what when fairly soon, if it hasn't been done already.

Cheers.

[displacedtexan]

2. in other words...

"I have no doubt at all - I have been in this position all the way through - that they will find evidence that those programmes were continuing well after Iraq was saying that they had been discontinued and shut down."

in other words... "they had weapons we sold them in the 80's, so we get to bomb them today."

if what i read this morning is true (that the kay report has been postponed indefinitely), i fully expect some radical departure from the standard wag-the-dog scenario to divert attention away from growing public disillusionment.

i wouldn't be at all surprised if bushco fragged one of its own... a few days before the california recall vote. colin powell would make a great martyr.

[punpirate]

4. Got a link to a story...

... on the Kay report postponement?

On edit, never mind... I see it's on the front forum page....

Cheers.

[salin]

5. Meanwhile, on US TV, Cheney tells Tim Russert

that Great Britain has reevaluated the intel on Niger - and confirmed it was true... so says folks watching Cheney lie on Meet the Press this morning.

[T_i_B]

6. In other words...

...If Tony Blair says so, then it must be true. :eyes:

Our government is about the only bunch left who still spout this shite about Niger uranium. Nobody here belives Blair in the slightest of course.