Posted on 06/05/2003 3:30:56 PM PDT by Stultis
London - Prime Minister Tony Blair failed yesterday to quiet a roar of criticism over allegations that his government doctored intelligence reports on Iraq [...]
Iain Duncan Smith of the Conservative Party, declared that "nobody believes a word now that the prime minister is saying." Blair [...] said charges that his Labor government altered intelligence reports were "totally untrue."
Smith dismissed as "disgraceful" claims made by senior officials of Blair's Labor Party to The Times of London that "rogue elements" in the intelligence services were trying to cast doubt on Blair's case for war against Iraq. [...]
More than 70 Labor members in the House of Commons have signed a petition demanding that Blair publish his evidence. A key Commons committee, brushing aside Blair's objections, approved an investigation late Tuesday. [...]
Fueled by hostile press coverage - the Sunday Mirror, for example, has denounced Blair's earlier claims on Iraq as "rubbish" - the charges seem to have struck a deep chord in Britain. [...]
Blair [said ...] that no one at his office at 10 Downing Street tried "to override the intelligence judgment" of the experts who prepared the dossier.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.
I suggest that the naysayers on both sides of the Atlantic check with the UN. That's where most of the WMD information came from -- the UN.
Blair will weather the storm, because, frankly, he's smarter than the naysayers.
Tony Blair's Press Office on Iraq/WMD/JIC (Briefing 5 June 2003)
My theory:
WMD are everywhere, and that is the problem.
Until they are fully secured, the media is being induced to broadcast that they don't exist, just long enough for them to be removed from terrorist reach.
The announcement of their discovery will come later, as both a security, and a political, slamdunk.
You see, Democrats and Terrorists are co-conspirators. And both despise Bush and America.
Dubya is good, and good for you.
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