- 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.
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- 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.
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- Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no
doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction".
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- "Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right."
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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."
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