Things are REALLY starting to fall apart for the Bush/Lapdog coalition:
Published on Sunday, October 5, 2003 by the Times/UK
Blair 'Knew Iraq Had No WMD'
by David Cracknell
TONY BLAIR privately conceded two weeks before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein did
not have any usable weapons of mass destruction, Robin Cook, the former foreign
secretary, reveals today.
John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), also "assented" that
Saddam had no such weapons, says Cook.
His revelations, taken from a diary that he kept as a senior minister during the months
leading up to war, are published today in The Sunday Times. They shatter the case for war
put forward by the government that Iraq presented "a real and present danger" to Britain.
Cook, who resigned shortly before the invasion of Iraq, also reveals there was a near mutiny
in the cabinet, triggered by David Blunkett, the home secretary, when it first discussed
military action against Iraq.
The prime minister ignored the "large number of ministers who spoke up against the war",
according to Cook. He also "deliberately crafted a suggestive phrasing" to mislead the
public into thinking there was a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and he did not want United
Nations weapons inspections to be successful, writes the former cabinet minister.
Cook suggests that the government misled the House of Commons and asked MPs to vote
for war on a "false prospectus".
He also reveals that Blair earlier gave President Bill Clinton a private assurance that he
would support him in military action in Iraq if action in the UN failed "and it would certainly
have been in line with his previous practice if he had given President Bush a private
assurance of British support".
Cook's long-awaited diaries, published in book form as Point of Departure, are the first
memoir of any member of Blair's cabinet. His disclosures are likely to lead to renewed calls
for a judicial inquiry into the legitimacy of the war.
The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly has dealt only with the question of what
the government believed ahead of publication of its Iraq dossier in September 2002 and
whether Downing Street hardened intelligence reports to make the threat from Saddam
seem more compelling.
Cook today opens a new controversy. He says that just days before sending troops into
action, Blair no longer believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ready for firing
within 45 minutes, the claim the prime minister had repeatedly made when arguing the
case for war.
Cook reveals that on February 20 this year he was given a briefing by Scarlett. "The
presentation was impressive in its integrity and shorn of the political slant with which No 10
encumbers any intelligence assessment," Cook writes in his diary. "My conclusion at the
end of an hour is that Saddam probably does not have weapons of mass destruction in the
sense of weapons that could be used against large-scale civilian targets."
Two weeks later, on March 5, Cook saw Blair. At the time the government was still trying to
get a fresh UN resolution and Cook was still in government as leader of the Commons.
Cook writes: "The most revealing exchange came when we talked about Saddam's arsenal.
I told him, 'It's clear from the private briefing I have had that Saddam has no weapons of
mass destruction in a sense of weapons that could strike at strategic cities. But he
probably does have several thousand battlefield chemical munitions. Do you never worry
that he might use them against British troops?'
"[Blair replied:] 'Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult
for him to assemble them quickly for use'."
Cook continues: "There were two distinct elements to this exchange that sent me away
deeply troubled. The first was that the timetable to war was plainly not driven by the
progress of the UN weapons inspections. Tony made no attempt to pretend that what Hans
Blix [the UN's chief weapons inspector] might report would make any difference to the
countdown to invasion.
"The second troubling element to our conversation was that Tony did not try to argue me
out of the view that Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction that were
designed for strategic use against city populations and capable of being delivered with
reliability over long distances. I had now expressed that view to both the chairman of the
JIC and to the prime minister and both had assented in it.
"At the time I did believe it likely that Saddam had retained a quantity of chemical
munitions for tactical use on the battlefield. These did not pose 'a real and present danger
to Britain' as they were not designed for use against city populations and by definition could
threaten British personnel only if we were to deploy them on the battlefield within range of
Iraqi artillery.
"I had now twice been told that even those chemical shells had been put beyond
operational use in response to the pressure from intrusive inspections. I have no reason to
doubt that Tony Blair believed in September that Saddam really had weapons of mass
destruction ready for firing within 45 minutes. What was clear from this conversation was
that he did not believe it himself in March."
Cook asks: "If No 10 accepted that Saddam had no real weapons of mass destruction
which he could credibly deliver against city targets and if they themselves believed that he
could not reassemble his chemical weapons in a credible timescale for use on the
battlefield, just how much of a threat did they really think Saddam represented?"
He raises "the gravest of political questions. The rules of the Commons explicitly require
ministers to correct the record as soon as they are aware that they may have misled
parliament. If the government did come to know that the [United States] State Department
did not trust the claims in the September dossier and that some of even their top experts
did not believe them, should they not have told parliament before asking the Commons to
vote for war on a false prospectus?"
Cook decided not to publish his diaries ahead of last week's Labour conference in
Bournemouth. Had he done so, his revelations would have ensured Blair received a much
tougher ride from activists, many of whom are deeply uneasy about the war.
He reveals that in the months leading up to the war Downing Street aides, including Alastair
Campbell, Blair's former director of communications, and Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff,
were obsessed with not falling out with Washington.
Cook discloses that several cabinet ministers had held misgivings about the war, not just
himself and Clare Short. At a cabinet meeting in late February 2002, Blunkett asked for a
discussion on Iraq and Cook received cries of "hear, hear" from cabinet colleagues when he
argued that Arab governments regarded Israel, not Iraq, as the real problem for the Middle
East. Cook records it was "the nearest thing I've heard to a mutiny in cabinet".
His diary entry of March 7, 2002, a year before the war, says that Blunkett and Patricia
Hewitt, the trade secretary, raised objections at cabinet.
"A momentous moment. A real discussion at cabinet. Tony permitted us to have the
debate on Iraq which David [Blunkett] and I had asked for. For the first time that I can recall
in five years, Tony was out on a limb."
According to Cook, Blunkett asked Blair: "What has changed that suddenly gives us the
legal right to take military action that we didn't have a few months ago?"
Hewitt warned Blair: "We are in danger of being seen as close to President Bush, but
without any influence over President Bush."
But the prime minister was "totally unfazed" and, when Hewitt again raised objections at
cabinet the following month, Blair refused to be boxed in, telling colleagues: "The time to
debate the legal base for our action should be when we take that action."
Cook reveals that Bush had wanted to hold a crucial war council with Blair in London on the
weekend before the invasion of Iraq, a move that would have been a public relations disaster
given public hostility to the war. Blair persuaded Bush to hold the summit in the Azores
instead.
By September last year most of the cabinet had fallen into line. At cabinet on September
23, before parliament was recalled from its summer break, Cook says: "Personally I found
it a grim meeting. Much of the two hours was taken up with a succession of loyalty oaths
for Tony's line."
He says only Estelle Morris, then education secretary, "bravely" reported public disquiet
that Britain was simply following Bush.
Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd |
