29 May 2003
Tony Blair stood accused last night of misleading Parliament and the British people over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and his claims that the threat posed by Iraq justified war.
Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, seized on a "breathtaking" statement by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war, and anger boiled over among MPs who said the admission undermined the legal and political justification for war.
Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction".
But Mr Cook said the Prime Minister's claims that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes were patently false. He added that Mr Rumsfeld's statement "blows an enormous gaping hole in the case for war made on both sides of the Atlantic" and called for MPs to hold an investigation.
Meanwhile, Labour rebels threatened to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for the cardinal sin of misleading Parliament - and force him to answer emergency questions in the House.
Mr Rumsfeld ignited the row in a speech in New York, declaring: "It is ... possible that they [Iraq] decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict and I don't know the answer."
Speaking in the Commons before the crucial vote on war, Mr Blair told MPs that it was "palpably absurd" to claim that Saddam had destroyed weapons including 10,000 litres of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin and "a host of other biological poisons".
But Mr Cook said yesterday: "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war has finished and we have still not found anything.
"It is plain he did not have that capacity to threaten us, possibly did not have the capacity to threaten even his neighbours, and that is profoundly important. We were, after all, told that those who opposed the resolution that would provide the basis for military action were in the wrong.
"Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right."
Speaking as he flew into Kuwait before a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq today, Mr Blair said: "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists.
"We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."
He added: "Our priorities in Iraq are less to do with finding weapons of mass destruction, though that is obviously what a team is charged with doing, and they will do it, and more to do with humanitarian and political reconstruction."
Peter Kilfoyle, the anti-war rebel and former Labour defence minister, said he was prepared to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for misleading Parliament. Mr Kilfoyle, whose Commons motion calling on Mr Blair to publish the evidence backing up his claims about Saddam's arsenal has been signed by 72 MPs, warned: "This will not go away. The Government ought to publish whatever evidence they have for the claims they made."
Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "No weapons means no threat. Without WMD, the case for war falls apart. It would seem either the intelligence was wrong and we should not rely on it, or, the politicians overplayed the threat. Even British troops who I met in Iraq recently were sceptical about the threat posed by WMD. Their lives were put at risk in order to eliminate this threat - we owe it to our troops to find out if that threat was real."
But Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "I think it is too early to rush to any conclusions at this stage; we must wait and see what the outcome actually is of these investigations."
Ministers have pointed to finds of chemical protection suits and suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories as evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological capability. But they have also played down the importance of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, provoked a storm of protest after claiming weapons finds were "not crucially important".
The Government has quietly watered down its claims, now arguing only that the Iraqi leader had weapons at some time before the war broke out.
Tony Benn, the former Labour minister, told LBC Radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes."
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said MPs "supported war based on a lie". He said: "If it's right Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq complied with the United Nations resolution 1441."
The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson added: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground."
The build-up to war: What they said
Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons
George Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003
We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd
Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit
Tony Blair 28 April, 2003
It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict
Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003
29 May 2003
After seven weeks of fruitless search, the Bush administration has come the closest so far to conceding that, contrary to its pre-invasion scaremongering, there may not have been any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq.
Several US military officers involved in the hunt in Iraq have raised the possibility that the illegal arms might have been destroyed, but the official line in Washington has been that Saddam Hussein had artfully hidden them, and sooner or later they would be found.
But now, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary and one of the leading hawks on Iraq, has admitted that the weapons may not exist. "We don't know what happened," he told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. "It is also possible that [Saddam's government] decided they would destroy them prior to a conflict."
What Mr Rumsfeld did not discuss was when the weapons might have been destroyed - immediately before the war, or long beforehand (as suggested by Iraqi defectors, who said as long ago as 1995 that they had been destroyed). Experts also doubt that, in the past few weeks or months, Iraq could have got rid of chemical and germ warfare stockpiles of the size alleged by Bush officials, without it being picked up by US and British intelligence.
Pentagon officials insist that Mr Rumsfeld broke no new ground and say that interrogations of senior Baathist officials and scientists will lead to the weapons' whereabouts. But his remarks may fuel the debate on whether the American public was sold the war on a false premise. As post-war reconstruction falters and US soldiers continue to die (four in recent days) at the hands of snipers and ambushers, questions are starting to be asked.
On Capitol Hill, in particular, scepticism is growing, despite a reluctance by Democrats to challenge Mr Bush on a national security issue that plays to a popular President's strengths. "This could conceivably be the greatest intelligence hoax of all time," said Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
The quality of the intelligence is to be looked at by a CIA-led team. This was suggested as long ago as October, with the aim of monitoring the process leading up to a war in Iraq, which even then seemed likely.
Intriguingly, the prime instigator of the investigation was Mr Rumsfeld who, disappointed by the lukewarm findings of the CIA, set up an intelligence unit inside his office to assess the Iraq threat. This body is known to have relied heavily on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress exile group, led by Ahmed Chalabi, long the preferred choice of the Pentagon and the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, to lead post-Saddam Iraq.
Whether the initiative will uncover the truth remains to be seen. The involvement of Mr Rumsfeld has been memorably likened by Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist, to "O J [Simpson] vowing to find the real killers" of his wife.
Even so, the controversy is unlikely to assume the proportions it has in Britain unless Iraq descends into anarchy and substantial numbers of US troops are lost. At present, complaints are directed at the shortcomings of the Pentagon's post-war planning, and the inadequate number of American soldiers in Iraq to restore order.
More than 100,000 troops are said to be in the country. But experts say at least double that will be needed. Weeks before the war, General Eric Shinseki, the outgoing army chief of staff, told a congressional panel that "several hundred thousand" troops would be required to keep the post-war peace. General Shinseki was slapped down by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, as "way off the mark". But he may have been right.
The claims that paved the path to the invasion of Iraq
30 January, 2002. George Bush: "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade ... This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
State of the Union address
24 September, 2002. Tony Blair: "I have been increasingly alarmed by the evidence from inside Iraq that ... despite his denials, Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction, and with them the ability to inflict real damage upon the region, and the stability of the world."
Foreword to 'Iraq's weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British government'
8 November, 2002. George Bush: "If Iraq fails to fully comply, the United States and other nations will disarm Saddam Hussein."
On the UN Security Council backing resolution 1441
8 November, 2002. Tony Blair: "Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is ... everyone now accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will."
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell: "One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file ... is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents ... The trucks and train-cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection ... in a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War."
Addressing the UN Security Council
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan."
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell: "Let me remind you ... of the 122mm chemical warheads the UN inspectors found. This discovery could well be ... the tip of a submerged iceberg. The question before us all is when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg?"
14 February, 2003. Hans Blix: "Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections of more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming."
Addressing the UN Security Council
27 February, 2003. George Bush: "In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilised world, and we will not allow it ... Acting against the danger will also contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world."
Address at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington
18 March, 2003. George Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Televised address, giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war
18 March, 2003. George Bush: "The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfil their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other."
20 March, 2003. George Bush: "At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
Televised address, announcing the start of the war
20 March, 2003. Tony Blair: "Our choice is clear: back down and leave Saddam hugely strengthened or proceed to disarm him by force."
Address to the nation as war started
2 April, 2003. Jack Straw: "The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime has become necessary to eradicate the threat from his programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction."
Speech at a Newspaper Society lunch
22 April, 2003. Hans Blix: "The US was very eager to sway the votes in the Security Council, and they felt stories about these things would be useful to have, and they let it out. And thereby they tried to hurt us a bit and say we had suppressed this. It was not the case, and it was a bit unfair, and hurt us."
Hans Blix, telling the BBC the US had seized on his alleged failure to include details of a drone and cluster bomb found in Iraq, in his presentation to the Security Council before the war
24 April, 2003. Jack Straw: "Given the fact that it will be American and British military who will be first on to any site, it will always be possible for those who opposed this military action to say, 'Oh well, they were planted'. Now, they won't be planted. We're going to immense care to ensure the veracity of the finds."
Speaking on the BBC News Interactive's 'Talking Point'
28 April, 2003. Tony Blair: "There was a six-month campaign of concealment of those weapons ... Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit."
Monthly news conference at 10 Downing Street
14 May, 2003. Jack Straw: "I hope there will be further evidence of literal finds ... It [Iraq's illegal arsenal] certainly did exist. There is no question about that ... It's not crucially important."
Interviewed on the BBC 'Today' programme
23 May, 2003. Hans Blix: "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 not ... It may turn out that in this respect the war was not justified."
In an interview with the Berlin newspaper, 'Der Tagesspiegel'
28 May, 2003. Donald Rumsfeld: "It is also possible that they decided they would destroy them prior to a conflict... It's hard to find things in a country that's determined not to have you find them. I suspect we'll learn a lot more as we go along and keep interrogating people."
In a speech in New York