Trouble for Blair -- Final End

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Date Posted: 00:52:24 06/06/03 Fri
Author: Drummond
Subject: Trouble for Blair

The Niger connection: Tony Blair, forged documents and
the case for war
=================

By Andrew Grice
Political Editor and
David Usborne in New York

The Independent (UK)
05 June 2003

Tony Blair was under mounting pressure yesterday after
he refused to withdraw discredited claims by the secret
intelligence service MI6 that Saddam Hussein tried to
buy uranium to make nuclear weapons.

The controversy over documents supplied by MI6 and
exposed as crude forgeries by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) before the war in Iraq now
threatens to erupt into a full-blown political scandal
on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yesterday the Prime Minister stood by the dossier on
Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
issued by the Government last September, which included
the claim that Iraq had "sought the supply of
significant quantities of uranium from Africa" even
though it had no active civil nuclear power programme.

On the same day the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US
Congress was given secret testimony that Niger had
provided Iraq with 500 tons of uranium oxide for its
secret nuclear bomb programme.

The Government's dossier on WMD also contained Mr
Blair's assertion that Iraq was able to launch
chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes,
which is now widely discredited.

The threat of Saddam acquiring nuclear weapons became a
linchpin in both governments' campaigns to build a case
for war. But the allegation was blown apart in March by
the IAEA, after a cursory investigation.

Yesterday Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary,
urged Mr Blair to withdraw his claim in the Commons
last September that Saddam was "actively trying to
acquire nuclear weapons capability".

The Prime Minister said at the time: "We know that
Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of
uranium from Africa, although we do not know whether he
has been successful."

Mr Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq
war, challenged Mr Blair in the Commons, asking whether
he had been advised that the documents on which the
claim was based were forged. He asked Mr Blair to
correct the record now by saying that "he regrets in
all good faith he gave the House information which has
since turned out to be wrong".

Mr Blair refused to do so, insisting there was
intelligence to back up the claim. He said: " I'm not
going into the details of what particular intelligence
it was. But there was intelligence judged by the Joint
Intelligence Committee at the time to be correct." He
said the Government was not in a position "to say
whether that is so or not" until after the
investigation to be carried out by Parliament's
Intelligence and Security Committee.

When the Prime Minister is quizzed by the committee, he
is expected to say that the Government had more than
one source for the allegation. One British official
said: "There were a number of sources for the text in
our dossier on that and we stand by it."

Last night the IAEA expressed surprise that Mr Blair
did not take the opportunity offered by Mr Cook to
abandon the allegation. Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman
for the IAEA, said: "These were blatant forgeries. We
were able to determine that they were forgeries very
quickly."

It only became apparent to the rest of the world in
March that the basis of the allegation, letters
purportedly exchanged between Iraqi agents and the
government of Iraq, had been faked. What is
embarrassing is how rudimentary the forgeries turned
out to be. One such letter, for example, had apparently
been signed by a Niger foreign minister who, at the
time of its signing, had in fact been out of office for
more than a decade.

The letters contained several other basic errors that
were immediately picked up by the IAEA investigators.

Members of Congress are now turning up the heat on the
White House to explain why intelligence that even the
CIA was dubious about was included in President George
Bush's state of the union address in January. Some
members have said it was the only reason they supported
the war.

The implication that Mr Bush may have deliberately
misled Congress, and the world, in that speech was made
in a private letter sent this week from Henry Waxman, a
leading Democrat in the House of Representatives, to Mr
Bush two days ago. The letter was seen yesterday by The
Independent. He wrote: "I urge you to explain why you
cited forged evidence about Iraq's efforts to obtain
nuclear materials in your state of the union address.

"That a President could cite forged evidence in such an
address - on a matter as momentous as impending war -
should be unthinkable."

"Using little more than a Google search, IAEA experts
discovered indications that should have been evident to
novice intelligence officials."

The issue is expected to be investigated closely by two
congressional inquiries to be launched in the United
States.

In his state of the union address, Mr Bush said: " The
British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa."

In April, a statement posted on the White House website
said: "He [Saddam] recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa, according to the
British Government."

Mr Waxman said last night: "The United States knew that
information independent of Tony Blair to be a hoax, to
be incorrect. At least our CIA knew it. Maybe the
President was relying on Tony Blair to make a statement
and therefore the President's statement was accurate.

But it's quite a deceptive way to make a presentation.
Of course it leaves open the question: what did Tony
Blair know about this?"

The US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who spent four
days ensconced with the CIA reviewing evidence before
addressing the UN, opted to drop the uranium allegation
from his testimony at the last minute.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=412558

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Replies:

Re: Trouble for Blair -- sjk, 09:45:28 06/07/03 Sat
- Re: Trouble for Blair -- sjk, 12:55:50 06/09/03 Mon