Posted on 07/13/2004 7:49:01 PM PDT by kcvl
Britain to issue report on Iraqi WMD intelligence
www.chinaview.cn 2004-07-14 09:46:33
LONDON, July 14 (Xinhuanet) -- A report on the role of the British intelligence in the investigation of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the war with Iraq will be officially published on Wednesday.
Lord Butler will publish his report at a news conference at 1230 BST (1130 GMT) on Wednesday, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressing the House of Commons on the issue at about 1330 BST (1230 GMT).
Local media widely agree it will be a "difficult and testing time" for Blair but not to be his worst yet. Meanwhile, the Downing Street seems to be embracing the hope that it will be the end of rows over Iraq's WMD and thus turn the voters' attention back to domestic issues.
Blair already had first sight of the Butler inquiry report Tuesday as media have been forecasting that the report will conclude that the government's claim of Hussein being capable of deploying WMD within 45 minutes was "vague and poorly founded."
The report is also expected to criticize Britain's spy masters and certain government figures including John Scarlett, the then head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary. Straw had reportedly overruled legal advice that the Iraq war would be unlawful without a second UN resolution.
However, some media suspect that the Butler report will just pour another bucket of whitewash to add to the industrial quantities already mixed by Lord Hutton, whose January report exonerated Blair and his government of "dishonorable" or "underhand" strategy during the Kelly affair.
Blair, who had said Iraq possessed WMD that posed a "serious and current" threat to the West before the war, refused Tuesday to comment on the findings of Lord Butler's report but denied he had been fed "duff" intelligence on Iraq.
"I feel very much as I did 18 months ago," he told a joint press conference following the British-Italian summit in London.
"It is very difficult to look at Iraq today, look at Iraq under Saddam and say we'd be better off, the world would be safer, we would be more secure if Saddam was still in charge," Blair said.
Britain's opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will be able to see the report from 0600 BST (0500 GMT) on Wednesday, leaving about seven hours to prepare for a Commons statement by Blair.
The Butler inquiry was set up in February in the wake of the failure to find any banned weapons in Iraq, amid suggestions that the UK's prewar intelligence might have been wrong.
The US Senate's intelligence committee has condemned the Central Intelligence Agency for wildly over-egging its tenuous evidence and even Blair himself admitted last week that those weapons may never be discovered.
Blair's public ratings have tumbled in opinion polls since last year's war in Iraq.
Loftus just said to watch this speech to see if it leaves an opening for the iraqi connection to the Libyan nuclear program to be made.
FYI
Somehow I'm losing hope that we'll be hearing a smoking gun of any sort in the next few months. But I'll be looking for the release of this report. Thanks.
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