In The Independent (UK) today, via Memeorandum, we find a horrifying story of political chicanery by British PM Tony Blair, who, according to a document produced after suppression for some time. The paper, written by British UN negotiator Carne Ross, is presented as follows:
Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war
By Colin Brown and Andy McSmith
Published: 15 December 2006The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.
Wow. Oh, my God, he lied!! That, friends, is a bombshell. Mr. Blair didn't just "mislead" the British into the Iraq War, he lied! Let's read a little further to see if we can ferret out the lies about the WMD.
So I looked first at the news article itself, and here's what I found:
In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction.
But that's not exactly what the report "makes clear," is it?
He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."
Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".
Reading Mr. Ross' report literally, what it states instead is that Iraq's WMD did not pose a threat to the UK etc., which is quite a bit different than stating that said WMD didn't exist. And the next quote states that the WMD threat had been "effectively contained," not that it had been "completely eliminated," a phrase which, had it been used, could have been taken to indicate complete disarmament. It would be legitimate, perhaps, for that first paragraph to state that "Mr. Blair must have known that Saddam Hussein was unlikely to be a direct threat from WMD," not that "Saddam Hussein possessed no" WMD. There is, in fact, a large difference.
In Mr. Ross' actual document, in the course of explaining how Iraq had neither the capacity nor the intent to use WMD against US or UK targets, he writes the following curious and isolated sentences.
With the exception of some unaccounted-for Scud missiles, there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW, BW or nuclear material. Aerial or satellite surveillance was unable to get under the roofs of Iraqi facilities. We therefore had to rely on inherently unreliable human sources (who, for obvious reasons, were prone to exaggerate).
There was no evidence of significant holdings of WMD ... but then aerial photograph/satellite surveillance was inadequate, and human sources were unreliable? It's hard to make a case then that there is certainty in any pre-war pronouncements, particularly since the inspection teams were scouring a country the size of California. The chief inspector, Hans Blix, had his doubts - but not until after the war had started.
Recall this statement from UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, after the start of the Iraq war:
"I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am beginning to suspect there possibly were none," Mr Blix told the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel.
Well, of course Mr. Blix should be interested in that. But at the start of the war he didn't know, and that's his job.
If Mr. Blix didn't know before the war started, then how is it that Mr. Ross is certain? It must also be pointed out that the concerns of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were not primarily that Saddam Hussein would use WMD against US or UK targets, but in light of the 9/11 attacks that such WMD might be available to terrorists who would.
Further, it's important to remember this. Mr. Ross was posted at his position in 1997.
I was First Secretary in the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York from December 1997 until June 2002.
There were no weapons inspections from October 1997 to November 2002 since the inspectors had been kicked out by Saddam, covering the entire time he served. He also admits being denied entry to Iraq himself repeatedly.
In short, this is a document that provides one man's opinion of the run up to war, and certainly can be given weight given his position. It does not, however, despite the assertions of The Independent's authors, prove that Saddam had no WMD and the UK government knew it. Should the inspectors have been given more time, as Mr. Ross states, and should pressure have been brought to bear on Syria, Iran and Turkey, who were helping with Iraqi oil exports, and on France, Russia and China, who were helping with OFF program cheating? That's a lot of extra supervision and international pressure to summon, including convincing three UN Security council members.
12/15/06 2045: Minor edits for clarity
