Yet Another WMD Claim Explodes in Blair’s Face, Linda S. Heard

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CAIRO, 30 December 2003 — Tony Blair has done it again. Not for the British prime minister the adage “once bitten twice shy”.

On the contrary, even while he still fends off accusations that he and his office purposely spiced up a dossier on Iraq’s weapons and awaits the outcome of the Hutton inquiry over the alleged suicide of weapons expert Dr. David Kelly, Blair sticks to his guns, or rather Iraq’s.

During a statement made to British forces on Dec. 16, Blair said: “The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists and plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles.”

Unfortunately for the British leader, US Viceroy in Iraq Paul L. Bremer, when asked for his verification, without being appraised of who made the claims in the first place, said: “It sounds like a red herring put about by someone opposed to military action to undermine the coalition. I don’t know where those words come from but that is not what David Kay (head of the Iraq Survey Group) has said.” I’ve read all the reports, he added.

Naturally when Bremer was told that Blair was the originator of his “red herring” he reverted to fast backtrack, spin mode in an attempt to undo the damage. Too late.

One might imagine that members of the British government would exercise caution when expounding theories on Iraq’s weapons after its intelligence services handed the US forged documentation concerning Iraq’s intentions to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. But if Blair is embarrassed, he certainly isn’t showing it.

While George W. Bush is taking a more pragmatic direction in the absence of Iraq’s WMD and pretending that the invasion was all about liberating the long-suffering Iraqi people, Blair hangs on doggedly to his original premise in the face of a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

The world was divided on the subject of Iraq’s proscribed weapons when the coalition went to war.

Those who were convinced of their existence began to have doubts when our screens were filled with US Marines rolling into Baghdad unimpeded. “Why didn’t Saddam use them with the enemy literally at the door?” they naturally wondered.

When Iraq’s former key players, such as Tariq Aziz and Ali Hassan Al-Majid (also known as Chemical Ali) were taken into custody, “the convinced” were certain they would eventually spill the beans. Iraqi scientists, who would have been involved in the manufacture of such weapons, were interviewed and the US came up with zilch.

“Ah,” said the convinced, “They are all terrified that Saddam the evildoer is still around and could take revenge on blabbermouths.” But what can they say now that the man himself has not only been caught but by all accounts has indicated he is ready and willing to negotiate?

In fact, Iraqi scientists have been talking, and they are all saying the same thing: Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were destroyed during the early 90s, beginning 1991.

Imad Khadduri, a prominent Iraqi scientist who worked for 30 years for his country’s nuclear programs has written a book entitled “Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage” which concisely and clearly puts forward the case that at the time of the invasion Iraq was WMD-free. Khadduri highlights the seizing of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs’ reports by David Kay in 1991 as the trigger for their destruction.

Wrote Khadduri: “In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority.”

This contention was borne out by his former boss, the founder of Iraq’s nuclear program Jafar Dhia Jafar, an internationally respected scientist, who had never signed up to the Baath Party.

In a Sunday Times article dated Nov. 30, Jon Swain reported that the scientist had been barred from flying to Britain to attend a meeting at the Royal Society in London for the purposes of establishing an Iraqi Academy of Science.

Jafar is quoted as saying: “The Iraqi nuclear program was abandoned and destroyed in 1991 and was never reconstituted. Iraq never attempted to buy uranium yellow cake from Niger nor from any other party since 1990.”

Swain contends that Jafar’s British visa was cancelled at the eleventh hour due to government fears “with all the authority his former position as Iraq’s top nuclear scientist gave him, there would have been more damage to Blair’s case. It would have reopened the debate on whether the war was justified and if the British people were lied to.”

Sadly, it is looking more and more that not only have the British people been victims of deception, so has Parliament. Clare Short, who quit her Cabinet post over the war and hinted at Blair’s propensity to exaggeration, is urging the British prime minister to resign.

Labour MP Diane Abbott claims Blair has made his loyal supporters feel like “pillocks” over the invasion.

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: “It is high time the prime minister cleared up this matter once and for all”.

With Blair’s credibility severely eroded by not only the elusive weapons but also statements of people in the know, such as Bremer’s and those of Iraq’s former scientific community, surely it is time for the British prime minister to say a simple “Sorry, I was wrong”, or if that’s too daunting a task then perhaps he should remain silent on the issue and hope against hope it will one day stop haunting him.

By perpetuating the myth, he digs himself in ever deeper and could well end up in a hole without a rope.

— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Mideast affairs and can be contacted at heardonthegrapevine@yahoo.co.uk