Downing Street Says

Asked if he would agree with the suggestion that if Saddam had complied with UN Resolution 1441, as the Prime Minister had said that he wanted him to do, Saddam would still be in power today, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that in his speech in Glasgow in February 2003, the Prime Minister had said that “The time is the time necessary to make a judgment: is Saddam prepared to co-operate fully or not? If he is, the inspectors can take as much time as they want. If he is not, if this is a repeat of the 1990s – and I believe it is – then let us be under no doubt what is at stake…..The moral case against war has a moral answer: it is the moral case for removing Saddam. It is not the reason we act. That must be according to the United Nations mandate on Weapons of Mass Destruction”. As the Prime Minister had said at the time, the reason for going to war was because Saddam was in breach of UN Resolutions, and had been for over twelve years. Resolution 1441 had given him a final chance to comply. Had he done so, he would have still been there. However, he had not complied, and that was the important point. Asked why the Prime Minister had criticised the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in PMQs today for adopting a position that would have left Saddam in power in Iraq when the Prime Minister himself had been looking to do the same thing by getting Saddam to comply with Resolution 1441, the PMOS said that as a Civil Servant he was unable to get drawn into a debate along party political lines. That said, it was important for people to recognise that, as we had pointed out at the time, we would have seen a different kind of regime had Saddam complied fully with the UN – a regime which would no longer be sustained by the threat of WMD.

Put to him that the “hard evidence” required by the Attorney General from the Prime Minister for his legal opinion on going to war against Iraq, as referred to in Paragraph 379 of the Butler Report, no longer stood up to scrutiny since the withdrawal of the 45-minute claim, the PMOS said the hard evidence was that Saddam was failing to comply with UN Resolutions. It was also worth looking at paragraph 449/21 of the Butler Report which stated that “We have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence”. No doubt journalists would want to give that quote as much prominence in their articles tomorrow as the quote that had initially been put him.

Asked why the Prime Minister was so reluctant to make a corrective statement to the House, the PMOS pointed out that the Prime Minister had responded in full to the Butler Report on the floor of the House in July when he had acknowledged that mistakes had been made and that he accepted responsibility for them.

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If, in the build up to war, the situation had been known that there were no WMD, no immediate threat to any nation, and also no links between Al-Quaida and Saddam’s regime, then the proportion of the population supporting the war would have been smaller, and the number of MPs, of any party, supporting the war would have also been smaller. It is quite likely that we would not have entered into the war at all.

How fortunate then, how wonderfully fantastically coincidentally fortunate then, that all the intelligence was wrong. And that, in every paper, on every news show, in every political soundbite, every single day in the lead up to the war; we were threatened with the immediate threat from WMD and from international terrorism. And that these claims could be backed up by the intelligence. Which, coincidentally, through no fault of the people who wanted and set in motion the war, was wrong. Unfortunate that no one listened to the intelligence personnel who raised doubts about it; of course, and unfortunate that some pieces of intelligence were given perhaps too high a profile; but no-ones fault.

As for knocking down your own straw man, or as it is also called, "The Butler Report", well done!

Attacking Kennedy for holding a position which would have left Saddam in power; the quotes made by Bliar before the war show that he too, had he been in posession of the CORRECT (oh, how unfortunate!) information, would have left Saddam in power. Does this mean that Bliar and Kennedy actually wanted Saddam to remain in power? No, it doesn’t. But it does show that one of them has a grasp on a sense of legitimacy and democracy.

Good timing for the find of mass graves, Brush’s election coming up, and Bliar being under fire after the withdrawal of the intelligence. Coincidence? surely. Of course the Iraqi people will have to be held back from finding their relatives and loved ones; but don’t forget, the justice, and conviction of Saddam, is for Bliar and Brush, not the common people of Iraq.
Comment by Lodjer — 15 Oct 2004 on 1:19 pm | Link
Nice one Lodjer; couldn’t have put it better myself. And I also remember that there were those of us who were going around at the time it all unfolded saying to people "open your eyes for christ’ sake, can’t you SEE what’s happening?!" And of course we were dismissed as conspiracy theorists and lefty loonies by the great unwashed and unread who blindly followed bliars lies regurgitated and magnified by the tabloids. The very same people who are now saying "look, forget the past, let’s just concentrate on sorting the mess out", hoping never to be called to account. No, say I! Let us pull the troops out of Iraq – at the very least, let Bliar grow some cojones and at least use the threat to TRY to force Brush to go the UN route. If he refuses; fine, pull ’em out – they should never have been there in the first bloody place!
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 15 Oct 2004 on 5:01 pm | Link
I’m afraid that I cannot believe that anyone thought that Iraq posed a threat to us, intelligence or not, it just was not conceivable
Comment by Colonel Mad — 16 Oct 2004 on 12:32 am | Link
If the intelligence was wrong, why did Blair promote the mediocrity who claimed "ownership" of it? John Scarlett is clearly a total incompetent, and appointing such a useless specimen to head the security services further endangers this country, just like the invasion of Iraq, as Blair was warned.

It’s time to impeach Blair.
Comment by Mysteron — 16 Oct 2004 on 8:08 pm | Link
It’s long past time…
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 18 Oct 2004 on 12:34 am | Link
should do it properly and have him up on a war crimes tribunal.

i seem to remember before the war started tb saying that is was NOT about regime change…… maybe that was dodgy intelligence too
Comment by tony — 19 Oct 2004 on 11:43 pm | Link
I e-mailed the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague last week to ask what had happened to the papers lodged last year by the Greek authorities requesting the Trial of TB for ‘war crimes’. I haven’t had a reply……
Also there is nothing on their web site about it……
So even if a government asks for a trial – nothing happens – what a surprise.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 20 Oct 2004 on 12:45 pm | Link

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» Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Iraq

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