Have any NAMED UK officials confirmed the DSM?

[helderheid]

I've got some people on my local lists expressing their doubts on DSM authenticity and want NAMED officials

[shraby]

1. Tony Blair....when Bush and Blair were

questioned at that press conference they both acknowledged the authenticity of the minutes by trying to say they went to the UN first and that people misunderstood what the minutes meant.

[helderheid]

2. thank you - I will look for that video or transcript

I appreciate it - anyone else besides them? I read :

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8234762/site/newsweek/


“Two senior British government officials today acknowledged as authentic a
series of 2002 pre-Iraq war memos stating that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear
weapons program was “effectively frozen” and that there was “no recent
evidence” of Iraqi ties to international terrorism—private conclusions that
contradicted two key pillars of the Bush administration’s public case for
the invasion in March 2003.”

Because they weren't named, I'm catching grief

[Spazito]

3. British officials cannot go on the record either way on the DSM

due to the Official Secrets Act. There have been multiple sources authenticating the various leaked documents to assure it's acceptance.

In terms of UK officials, will Blair suffice for those people?

"PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050607-2.html

[helderheid]

4. thank you - I sent both responses from Blair and Bush