Downing Street Says » War on Terror

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that the level of threat to the UK had changed in the year since the beginning of the Iraq war, the PMOS said that the level of threat had always been high. Pressed as to whether it was higher today than it had been before the Iraq war, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our policy to give full details about the level of the terrorist threat at any one point in time. If the Government felt it necessary to take a particular course of action to counter the threat, as we had done with Heathrow last year, then we would do so and alert the public. It was important to recognise that the UK had been at risk both before September 11 and after. The threat was clearly still present and real. We were working flat out with the security services and the police to do all we could to protect Britain. As Jack Straw had pointed out this morning, countries that had not supported the war had also found themselves subjected to appalling terrorist atrocities. We shouldn’t kid ourselves about the nature of Al Qaida and this sort of Muslim fundamentalism. These people stood for complete hatred of the West and all its values. They considered those who did not support them 100% as opposing them.

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"They considered those who did not support them 100% as opposing them."
— like President Bush, then?
Comment by Chris Lightfoot — 18 Mar 2004 on 4:43 pm | Link
The sad fact is that the government needs the war on terror as a distraction from other more tangible and measurable subjects like PFI hospital disasters, education [can they find any new ways of manipulating statistics?], transport [no policy], council tax [humm?], poverty, care in the comunity [not working], overcrowded prisons [let them off ‘cos we can’t afford new prisons], blah blah ……..
More people die from inadiquate care, drunken drivers [3 penalty points], poverty and drug abuse in a year than any terrorist group could hope to kill in 10 years.
Whilst the focus is on something [secret] intangible we are going to have to suffer being spun around [ignored] for as long as it takes to find a government that is interested in governing.
Meanwhile citizens are dying needlessly because of inertia and a lack of initiative in the government.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 18 Mar 2004 on 5:44 pm | Link
Very good point Roger

The "war on teror" is a distraction and the economics don`t seem to add up.

However we do have to worry about terrorist getting their hands on much more powerful weapons such as nuclear ones and some biological ones (ie Smallpox)
These are very dangerous and if terrorist keep on hitting us hard then their fanbase (supporters) grows which will help them get money and such like for these weapons.
Comment by John Murphy — 18 Mar 2004 on 9:06 pm | Link
Yes John, you are right, I understand but focusing on the ‘known’ terrorists in such a ‘spinning’ way doesn’t prevent other groups from using bio or nuclear wepons. It requires a degree of sophistication to build useful bio and nuclear wepons and the overall effects of an easy dirty bio/nuclear attack will still be minimal [in Global terms].
The smallpox issue is difficult for a terror group because one of the things that they need to keep in mind is that once their actions start to harm thier ‘supporters’ their credibility suffers and their support wanes. In a global terror network the number of targets for smallpox attacks is limited. Hit London and take out some of your financial support … humm..
If as we are led to believe ‘somebody’ was taken in by old fake paperwork suggesting that Iraq had nuclear material and we couldn’t verify the facts on WMD before the ‘war’ then one might conclude that seeding a target with false paperwork and a bit of wepons making material could induce the ‘coalition’ to perpetrate the act of ‘terror’ for the seeding group. Good old ‘cold war’ tactics 😉
OK I’m cynical I was going to write a bit about how to really scare people with minimal dirty resources – but then these comment would get ‘pulled’.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 19 Mar 2004 on 8:07 am | Link
There is an issue of security which needs to be answered. I think it’s an important issue.

People seem to be missing the underlying fact that some people hate the western world and we need to address that. These people are fanatics but then again I think I would be if I was a palestinian who new that America was giving Isreal $3 billion a year (thats a year folks!) which will then be spent on guns, bullets, helicopters to kill them.

The UK and the US put Saddam Hussien in power, just like they put the Taliban in power. We should concentrate on what we have done to this world and learn from it. The entire reason that terror is so hard to get rid of? It’s because we spread fear and hatred when we mess around with a country and then are surprised when people hate us.

All that being said I am not saying the Bin Laden et al. are nice men who are misunderstood. All I’m saying that if people are scared/desperate enough then clever manipulators like Bin Laden (CIA trained folks) and his kind can convince them of anything.

If you don’t belive that, then why not take a trip to Burnley right now. Or just read a history book and look up Germany 1936.
Comment by Ste — 19 Mar 2004 on 12:55 pm | Link
The UK did not put Saddam Hussein in power. The UK backed the Iraqi Royal family who were deposed and murdered by the Qassim Baathist coup in 1958. The 1968 coup in which Saddam’s sect took power was not welcomed, and The Times’ first leader (18th July 1968) said "It is highly improbable that the latest turn of the wheel is going to bring them [the Iraqi people] any comfort". The deposed President flew to London after the coup.
Comment by David Boothroyd — 19 Mar 2004 on 1:06 pm | Link
Ok, semantics… We didn’t put Saddam in power, but when it became apparent that he served the greater good of the US administration of the day, we quickly acquiesced into tolerating him and his excesses. Since then he has had material support from the UK (one has only to look back as far as the Arms for Iraq scandal); enough material support for the whole "war" against Iraq seem even more hypocritical.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 19 Mar 2004 on 7:10 pm | Link
Saddam Hussien was a CIA sponsored asset, he was helped by Britain when he was exiled to egypt.

He was exiled because he was behind an assasination plot, which was presumably with the US sanctioning and with UK approval because we had so much interest in Iraq at the time
Comment by Ste — 23 Mar 2004 on 3:34 pm | Link
And the truthful response would be:

"Thankyou dear journalist: Of course, here;s the truth: any form of overt visible action will raise our global profile, and hence make us more of target. That’s leadership for you.

Do we, as a nation, believe that the alternative response: ‘A United States unilateral invasion’ would have been a better alternative in the face of the UN inertia which existed at that time?

I doubt we do.

Is this Point of View actually campaignable with the famous fickle ‘British Public’? Well who knows? but it would be an interesting thought experiment for the gov’t to try openness as a first, rather than a last resort!
Comment by Tim Kitchin — 24 Mar 2004 on 2:05 am | Link
Just a thought.
In order to influence their thinking on joining the Coalition in Iraq, the Pentagon offered the Poles 48 (not a misprint, forty-eight) F-16 fighter planes, PLUS a grant of $3.6 billion with which to buy them.
It is hardly surprising that Poland has declined to pull out of Iraq (although the President of Poland did indicate he might withdraw earlier than planned).
Mind you, Turkey declined payments of $25 billion.
Yes, Turkey got bombed anyway but the targets were British and Israeli.
[Post edited by moderator]
Comment by eelpie — 18 Mar 2004 on 10:32 pm | Link
This may amuse…:

<a href = ‘http://crackleandhiss.ebloggy.com/’>http://crackleandhiss.ebloggy.com/</a>
Comment by Hilary Matthews — 2 Mar 2005 on 1:01 pm | Link

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War on Terror

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