British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a significant change of stance, said he now accepted that weapons of mass destruction might never be found in Iraq.
He defended last year's invasion of Iraq, however, saying it was justified after many years of UN Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear arms.
The primary reason for the invasion of Iraq is now Saddam’s pursuit of nuclear arms and chemical and biological weapons some of which the United States and Britain had already helped Saddam obtain. #msg-3490010
-Am
Blair accepts Iraqi weapons may never be found
LONDON (AFP) Jul 06, 2004 British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a significant change of stance, said Tuesday he now accepted that weapons of mass destruction might never be found in Iraq.
"I have to accept that we haven't found them, that we may not find them," said Blair during a question-and-answer exchange with senior members of the British parliament.
"We don't know what has happened to them," Blair added. "They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed."
He defended last year's invasion of Iraq, however, saying it was justified after many years of UN Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear arms.
"I do not believe there was not a threat in relation to weapons of mass destruction... We have found very clear evidence of intent and desire," the prime minister said.
"I genuinely believe that those weapons were there and that is why the international community came together as they did... Whether they were hidden, removed or destroyed, (Saddam) was in clear breach of UN resolutions."
Prior to Tuesday, when he was meeting the chairmen of the various select committees of the House of Commons, Blair had never gone so far as to say Saddam's presumed arsenal might never be found.
Instead, he routinely told people to wait for the findings of the Iraq Survey Group, which has been hunting for weapons of mass destruction since the US and British invasion of Iraq in March last year.
Blair's apparent change of tack might be timed ahead of the July 14 release of a report by an independent inquiry led by former top civil servant Lord Robin Butler into the use and quality of British intelligence in the run-up to war.
Political analysts speculate that Blair might use Butler's report as the opportunity to make a partial apology over the Iraq war -- possibly to say that he erred in linking it so firmly to Saddam's illicit firepower.
That could enable him to finally escape the lingering shadow of Iraq before parliament breaks for its summer holidays, and then to focus public attention on domestic issues in the autumn.
From there, Blair could go on to call a general election -- with hopes of winning a third straight term in office -- in the first half of next year.
During his relaxed, semi-annual exchange with the committee chairmen, Blair, testifying in shirtsleeves, defended Britain's so-called "special relationship" with the United States, saying it was nothing to be ashamed of.
"Let people say whatever they like about it," he said.
"But in the end I believe it is an important relationship for us because we share their values and we share their view that the best security we ultimately have is the spread of freedom and democracy and justice throughout the world."
He insisted that Britain also had good relations with fellow EU heavyweights France and Germany, which both vigorously opposed the Iraq war.
But he stressed that so long as he was prime minister, he would never allow Britain's ties with the United States to be "subordinated to the interests of any other country".
CIA warns Iraqi insurgents trying to fashion chemical weapons
What goes around....
George Galloway writes: "If there were a genuine accounting for the many crimes committed in Iraq, it would be a trial not seen since Nuremberg. It would involve those who sold Saddam the gas he used at Halabja; those who encouraged him to invade Iran when its revolution threatened to sweep away the corrupt kings and puppet presidents of Arabia propped up and profited from by the west; those, like Donald Rumsfeld, who twice visited Saddam during that war to help him target the terrible weapons the west had sold him; and those whose hands are covered with the blood of all those buried in the biggest of all the mass graves in Iraq - slaughtered by sanctions. We who saw and cried out about this slaughter were traduced as fabricators; and later, when it could no longer be denied, as 'mouthpieces', 'apologists' or even 'paid agents' of Saddam." #msg-3490010
At the same time that the U.S. government had knowledge of that the Iraqi military was using chemical weapons, it was providing intelligence and planning assistance to the Iraqi armed forces. (Patrick Tyler, "Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq In War Despite Use Of Gas," New York Times, Aug. 18, 2002, p. 1.)
When Iraq used chemical weapons in March 1988 against Halabja, there was no condemnation from Washington. (Dilip Hiro, " which at least 50,000 and possibly 100,000," The Observer, September 1, 2002, p. 17.) "In September 1988, the House of Representatives voted 388 to 16 in favor of economic sanctions against Iraq, but the White House succeeded in having the Senate water down the proposal. In exchange for Export-Import Bank credits, Iraq merely had to promise not to use chemical weapons again, with agricultural credits exempted even from this limited requirement." (Rubin, "The United States and Iraq: From Appeasement to War," p. 261.)] #msg-3433798
-Am
CIA warns Iraqi insurgents trying to fashion chemical weapons
WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 26, 2005 Insurgents engaged in a guerrilla campaign against US forces and the new government in Iraq are making a concerted effort to gain chemical weapons capability and have already used old Iraqi chemical munitions in their attacks, the top US weapons investigator warned Monday.
Charles Duelfer, head of a CIA-led expert team that unsuccessfully searched for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the March 2003 US-led invasion of the country, said the danger that rebels could gain the know-how for manufacturing crude chemical devices "remains an important concern."
The warning is contained in a final installment of last year's report by the Iraq Survey Group, which concluded that alleged massive stockpiles of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons used by the administration of President George W. Bush to justify the war simply did not exist.
The addendum reaffirms that conclusion, with Duelfer pointing out that the investigation "has gone as far as feasible" and the reservoir of available data about Baghdad's weapons programs "has been exhausted."
But for the first time, the group showcases evidence that insurgents are trying to set up chemical weapons laboratories with the help of Iraqi scientists who worked for the Saddam Hussein regime, and that on at least two occasions used chemical munitions remaining from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war in attacks against coalition forces.
According to the report, the assailants most likely "did not know the rounds contained CW agent because the rounds were not marked to indicate they contained" it.
During one of these attacks, a round containing mustard gas was used as part of an improvised explosive device outside Abu Ghurayb barracks on May 2, 2004, the document said.
The agent, Duelfer noted, was old and "degraded to such an extent to be ineffective." Nevertheless, the rebels were taking specific steps to come up with a new and more potent arsenal.
"There are multiple reports of Iraqis with general chemical and biological expertise helping insurgents to produce chemical and biological agents," warned the weapons investigator.
The CIA was aware of one unnamed Iraqi scientist associated with the country's pre-Gulf War weapons of mass destruction program assisting guerrillas while another was involved in clandestine attempts to produce chemical mortar munitions, according to the report.
In addition, a string of underground chemical laboratories allied with Sunni extremists known as the Al Abud network was found in and around Baghdad.
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