Short sees no link with Iraq and Libya
Saddam Hussein’s final capture and Libya’s pledge to destroy weapons of mass destruction will give only “temporary comfort” to beleaguered leaders Tony Blair and George Bush, former International Development Secretary Clare Short forecasted today.
Mrs Short left her job after the Blair government stood resolutely shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in the war to rid Iraq of WMDs, despite calls from European partners to seek extra United Nations resolutions backing military action.
Writing in the Independent on Sunday, Mrs Short said it was “sadly false” to think that recent events demonstrated that the war on terror was succeeding.
“The co-ordination of the Blair-Bush press conferences claiming a big success in the ‘war on terror’ has a pathetic tone that reflects Blair’s desperation and the two men’s continuing belief that they can prosecute their ‘war’ with half-truths and deceptions,” she wrote.
Mrs Short said arguments suggesting the victory in Iraq had prompted Colonel Gaddafi to end his nuclear programme were “unfounded.”
She wrote: “Any pretence that this means that the tactics of their so-called ‘war on terror’ are succeeding is sadly false.
“Obviously the news about Gaddafi is welcome, but it has been a long process, and any suggestion that events in Libya are linked to the war in Iraq is unfounded.
In the broadsheet, she renewed her call for Mr Blair to stand down as leader and reflecting on politics across the Atlantic she backed anti-war Democrat candidate Howard Dean in the 2004 US Presidential elections.
Mrs Short contended that the United Nations ought to be given authority in Iraq, with a court set up under the auspices of UN authority, a kind to the tribunal in Sierra Leone.
