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Deputy Political Editor TONY Blair silenced his critics on Iraq yesterday by describing the mass graves of women and children murdered by Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Prime Minister told MPs that investigators had found kids’ corpses still clutching toys. Pregnant women had been slaughtered. They lay alongside foetuses. The body of one mum — shot in the face — clutched her baby. The tot had been shot in the back of the head.
One seven-year-old boy’s skeleton still held a football. Mr Blair said the full horror of the scenes proved why Britain was RIGHT to oust tyrant leader Saddam. The PM spoke out as he apologised for using flawed MI6 reports into Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programme to back his case for war. He said the sickening discoveries in the north of Iraq justified the invasion. Mr Blair told a stormy Commons: “It would be good if we got the same amount of publicity for the report we have received on mass graves in Iraq.” One of the sites was described by US investigator Greg Kehoe as “a killing field”. Mr Blair read out a section of Mr Kehoe’s dossier — reported yesterday in The Sun. It said: “Someone used this field on significant occasions over time to take bodies there and people there to execute them.
“I’ve been doing gravesides for a long time but I’ve never seen anything like this. Women and children executed for no apparent reason.” The PM stressed: “Such a regime should never have the possibility of having WMD. This is the latest proof of what an appalling regime it was.” Nine trenches containing hundreds of Kurdish victims have been found at Hatra. Investigators believe they were butchered by Saddam’s forces in the late 1980s. One trench contained only women and children. Another held only men. Although Mr Blair apologised for passing on flawed intelligence about Iraq’s WMDs he refused point blank to say sorry for going to war. The PM told the Commons: “I will not apologise for removing Saddam Hussein or for the conflict. “It was right then, it is right now and is essential for the security of the world. “I cannot bring myself to say I misrepresented the evidence, because I do not believe I did.” Last night it emerged European grave specialists who worked in Kosovo and Bosnia are refusing to help in Iraq in case their evidence leads to Saddam’s execution. Investigator Mr Kehoe said the “strike” was hampering international efforts to find the graves of 300,000 victims of Saddam’s rule.
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| PM was wrong
By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON NEW EU commissioner Peter Mandelson last night sensationally told Tony Blair he was WRONG to go to war in Iraq without a second UN resolution. Mr Mandelson’s stinging rebuke came despite the Prime Minister handing him a £190,000-a-year Brussels post just two months ago. He said war should never be declared when the “intelligence was neither certain nor precise.” Mandy told the BBC: “In a similar situation, we need to find ways of proceeding with greater transparency. “And we need mechanisms to establish international consensus when embarking on actions as an international community. “International legitimacy counts for a very great deal in international affairs.” Mr Mandelson will claim he was only supporting the PM’s view that a second UN resolution was desirable. But he has left himself open to accusations of cosying up to anti-war EU chums. THE terrorists who murdered Ken Bigley have beheaded two Iraqi intelligence officers and posted a video of the killings on the internet. The Tahwid and Jihad Group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, showed a close-up of the two men’s ID cards moments before they were killed.
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