[Peace-discuss] Tony Blair knew that Iraq had no WMDs

[patton paul]

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.