Prime Minister denies WMD ‘spin’
The Prime Minister has angrily denied claims that the Iraq weapons dossier was manipulated to garner support for the war on Iraq.
Speaking from the G8 summit of world leaders in Evian, France, Mr Blair insisted that the public had not been misled by claims of evidence about purported weapons of mass destruction.
The Prime Minister stated that he stood “absolutely 100%” by the evidence that had been presented to the British public and highlighted that two mobile research facilities had been discovered since the war had ended.
His comments come after the former International Development Secretary Clare Short claimed that the Prime Minister had ‘duped’ the country into going to war.
Speaking yesterday, Ms Short argued that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to the international community had been exaggerated by coalition governments in order to prepare public opinion for military action against Iraq.
Responding to such assertions, Mr Blair remarked: ‘Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false’.
‘Every single piece of intelligence that we presented was cleared very properly by the joint intelligence committee’.
‘Secondly, the idea that as apparently Clare Short is saying, that I made some secret agreement with George Bush last September that we would invade Iraq at any event at a particular time is also completely and totally untrue’.
The conflict had only finished six weeks or so ago and the current emphasis was on overseeing the early stages of reconstruction in Iraq, according to the PM.
‘In relation to weapons of mass destruction, there is an international survey group which is going in actually starting its work this week’, he said, stating that they would be interviewing scientists and investigating the sites.
And he added: ‘I simply ask people to have a little patience. There is a process in place, it will take some time to carry out, but when we get the results of it, we will put it before people’.
Over recent day MPs from all parties have criticised the Government’s actions regarding evidence for Saddam’s banned weapons programme and are increasingly demanding an official inquiry.
However, speaking this morning, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flatly denied accusations that government ‘spin’ had been used to make the dossier ‘sexier.’
He insisted that there was ‘overwhelming’ evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons and posed a ‘sufficient threat’ to international peace and security.
According to a YouGov poll, just 51 per cent of people in the UK believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, down from 71 per cent in February.
The G8 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States and the UK.
