Tony Blair "had lied" over Saddam's WMDs, Former Diplomat Says

Tony Blair's allegation of Saddam possesing WMDs and an "ability to activate them within 45 minutes" was proved to be not correct by a secret testimony, initially presented at an inquiry to the Butler committee. Carne Ross, who gave the testimony back in 2004, is a former first secretary to the British UN mission and responsible for Iraq policy. Yesterday he told a House of Commons committee that he and other analysts believed that Iraq had only had a "very limited" ability to mount any attack, including one using weapons of mass destruction. Carne Ross resigned from a promising diplomatic career in 2004, racked by a bad conscience and threatened to be charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act if he eased it.



This is the extention of "the secret Downing Street memo" and the reality behind it now documented by Ross' testimony. And Tony Blair proven to be a liar decieving the public in his eager to follow George Bush. Blair must resign immediately, he can't wait until May 2007.

The evidence now made public, was initially attempted to be stopped by the Foreign Office. The Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs published it nevertheless after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

"There was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material" held by the Iraqi dictator before the invasion. "There was, moreover, no intelligence or assessment during my time in the job that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or the US," Ross had told Lord Butler.

Blairs argument to justify the war is hereby disproved.

The Bush administration was not the only government which changed the intelligence and the facts to fit their policy before the Iraq invasion. The timeline of the state of Britain's Iraq policy as the politicians seized it by the scruff of the neck in 2002 can be reviewed in this link of the 4 part report published yesterday by the Independent. Saddam seen as no threat - then politicians got to work.

The part about Carne Ross' struggle with his conscience as a civil servant and how he ended up doing his civil duty is in the part called Whistleblower that ministers tried to muzzle.

And finally The full transcript of evidence given to the Butler inquiry.


Related News Links:
www.aljazeera.com
www.telegraph.co.uk
www.usatoday.com
www.dailyindia.com

[edit on 16-12-2006 by khunmoon]


[edit on 2006-12-16 by wecomeinpeace]

Arrest them. Arrest Tony Blair and his aides, arrest George Bush and his administration and charge them all with war crimes, genocide, and treason in their respective countries.

There's a growing mountain of evidence that both administrations knew Iraq was no threat and deceived the public to garner support for an invasion.

Thousands of Iraqis have been killed, millions have fled the country and civil war is about to decimate what's left of the country.

Our 'leaders' need to be put on trial and have all the classified evidence disclosed to the public. If they're guilty, they should be publicly executed.

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Arrest them. Arrest Tony Blair and his aides, arrest George Bush and his administration and charge them all with war crimes, genocide, and treason in their respective countries.

Yes, I agree, rather today than tomorrow.

But what authority is to deal with the kingpin bully and his henchmen?

i agree but it wont happen because the people who control whether or not the get tried are in on it too. they are all bought and payed for by the same people.

Well the Bush apologists who stalk this place are certainly conspicious by their absence on this thread...but give them time, they will be all over this like flies on merde denying denying denying....and can you really blame them? They have invested so much time and energy on it if Bush himself came out and publicly that he lied about the reasons he gave for getting into this mess, they would deny as well and claim that it was some sort of liberal lie.

It amazes me no other media (that I can find) have reported the story, Independet doesn't even seem to follow up. And Tony Blair, at a time of his own choice, questioned in a police investigation about illegal funding of Labour, which happened to be the day of the release of the Diana report.

On Friday, the day his lies were revealed, he then goes on charming trip to the ME. Diversion is what it seems to be, but I'm afraid it's more than that.

Blackmail, conspiracy? Not even BBC (remember David Kelly) have reported this.

Bush was going into Iraq no matter what. This left Blair with 2 choices:

1. Exceptionally bad - Bush alone in Iraq without even attempting a UN resolution. Christ knows what this would have provoked within the arab world but the world today would be considerably worse than it is. Oh, and to all the naive folks out there, the UK is covered in US air bases and the UK and US share a lot of resources. The exremists in the world would have still thought that Britain was aiding the US even if we didn't go into Iraq. All those US sites in Britain would have been a traget.

So Britain would NOT be safer if Bush went alone in fact we would have been less safe due to the appalling manner in which the US conducts itself in "occupied" territories.

2. Very Bad - the current situation.

Now the problem with these choices is that a lot of people have this fairy tale view of the world that we have good choices and bad choices and we should always choose the good. Explaining why the "very bad" choice is the better one is almost impossible. So Blair had to find a reason that he could sell hence WMD.

That said he should have withdrawn by now (I suspect Blair thinks he can prevent civil war). However I can gurantee that when the troops withdraw the ensuing civil war will be blamed on the invasion/withdrawl. Civil war in Iraq is inevitable and only delayed by Saddam. The muslim world has not killed millions of themselves with modern weapons....yet. Europe has been through that and the US has had a taste but not on its own soil which is why it still shoots from the hip

Originally posted by grover
Well the Bush apologists who stalk this place are certainly conspicious by their absence on this thread...

Now I'm not going to defend GWB in this context and to be honest that seems unnecessary as the article and evidence relates essentially to Tony Blair and the British Government's actions. So I apologise for being late on parade but I am really busy at the moment, however, assuming anybody actually gives a damn I will be perfectly happy to explain why this post and article are no better than the so called "lies" and distortions promulgated by the Blair Government later on tonight if I get a few quiet minutes to put it together properly.