Um…this is news? I knew he was doin’ it from the moment he became Bush’s poodle.
The 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.
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. 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”.
He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. “I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed),” he said.
“At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that ‘regime change’ was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.”
Official Secrets Act? There’s one to make you shudder. It ought better to be called the Official Bum-Covering Act, because whenever there’s a murderous lie to be sold to the public or an ethic to be breached, guess what covers it all and the embarrassingly naked and pimply rump of its perpetrator?
This all ties in rather nicely to another thing I’ve long suspected–that Tony Blair tried to talk sense to Dubya, failed, and came out of the meeting with his pants around his ankles, rubbing his sore bottom. But rather than hitching up what was left of his dignity, he decided he liked the rough stuff and would rather hang for a sheep than get the hell out of the pasture while the getting was good. After that, what was there left to do BUT lie, haul out fraudulent stories of WMD, people shredders, and heaven only knows what all else? Blow all kinds of smoke just so people don’t notice that lingering aroma of Merde de Mouton.
And now Toady’s really gonna hang for a sheep. A whole flock of them, actually, including this one:
Mr Ross’s evidence directly challenges the assertions by the Prime Minster that the war was legally justified because Saddam possessed WMDs which could be “activated” within 45 minutes and posed a threat to British interests. These claims were also made in two dossiers, subsequently discredited, in spite of the advice by Mr Ross.
His hitherto secret evidence threatens to reopen the row over the legality of the conflict, under which Mr Blair has sought to draw a line as the internecine bloodshed in Iraq has worsened.
Mr Ross says he questioned colleagues at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence working on Iraq and none said that any new evidence had emerged to change their assessment.
“What had changed was the Government’s determination to present available evidence in a different light,” he added.
Mr Ross said in late 2002 that he “discussed this at some length with David Kelly”, the weapons expert who a year later committed suicide when he was named as the source of a BBC report saying Downing Street had “sexed up” the WMD claims in a dossier. The Butler inquiry cleared Mr Blair and Downing Street of “sexing up” the dossier, but the publication of the Carne Ross evidence will cast fresh doubts on its findings.
Oh boy, there’s that dodgy dossier again, and the suicided scientist to boot. Plus the blood of how many British soldiers and Iraqis on his hands?
Start scrubbing, Prime Minister Lady Macbeth.
And good luck getting THIS blood off your hands.
PS: John Kampfner writes in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section that Toady’s poodle tendencies have landed Britain in still deeper shit for future generations. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it has. Check it out!
