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Blair
Steps Back From Iraq Fight
LONDON,
April 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The British government has
indefinitely delayed publishing a dossier revealing damning evidence
against the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, just days before the
British Prime Minister Tony Blair flies out to meet U.S. President
George W. Bush at the weekend to discuss a possible military strike on
Iraq, news agencies reported.
In
a sign that Britain recognizes that open prosecution of a war against
Iraq is politically impossible, Downing Street has deferred plans to
publish the report, which purports to show how Saddam Hussein is
defying the U.N. by building weapons of mass destruction. The dossier,
trailed by the No. 10 press secretary, Alastair Campbell, will now be
published when "it is believed to be appropriate," the
British Daily online Guardian reported.
Downing
Street feared that publication would add to the fevered speculation of
an imminent strike, as well as exacerbate dissent on the Labor
backbenches, the daily said.
Blair’s
meeting with the U.S. president comes against the backdrop of mounting
opposition to possible armed action against Iraqi President, BBC’s
online service reported.
A
Commons motion expressing "deep unease" over the prospect of
British support for U.S. action against Iraq has now been signed by
141 MPs, many of them Labor backbenchers.
Labor
MPs considered the outlines of the evidence to be unconvincing. There
has also been some pressure on the intelligence agencies to declassify
documents to improve the quality of the evidence. Leading members of
the British clergy also Sunday March 31, 2002, warned Blair against a
military strike and called on the U.S. to publish its evidence.
International
Development Secretary Clare Short is one cabinet minister to have
raised concern over potential action, BBC said.
She
has hinted she might resign if military force was used without United
Nations backing, the online service added.
Blair’s
dossier, compiled by U.S. and British intelligence, was designed to
reveal incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqi leader was assembling
weapons of mass destruction in defiance of U.N. security council
resolutions, and would have been used to prepare European public
opinion for some form of military action if Saddam continued to build
up his military arsenal.
A
dossier on Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare
capabilities was drawn up earlier this month by the Cabinet Office's
joint intelligence committee chaired by John Scarlett, a former MI6
officer, after intense discussions within the intelligence community
about what should be published and how much speculation it should
contain.
Labor's
Tam Dalyell, the longest serving MP, was among the 3,500 demonstrators
who joined a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) rally on Saturday.
Dalyell
said even the Iranians, who fought a devastating eight-year war
against Saddam Hussein, opposed fresh military action against Iraq.
"It
is no good demonizing Saddam Hussein. He's not a nice man but
demonizing a country is a different matter," Dalyell added.
In
the end, it was agreed that the dossier should be "factual",
and not contain speculation. MI6 was also concerned that it should not
contain any information that could threaten its intelligence sources,
according to Whitehall officials.
However,
many of the new allegations about Iraq's program for weapons of mass
destruction are based on assumption and speculation. Though the
dossier contains evidence about Baghdad's development of biological
weapons - including anthrax and botulinum toxin - it is largely based
on what was discovered by U.N. weapons inspectors back in 1998, The
Guardian said.
Even
the CIA admits that intelligence gathered after that date, when the
weapons inspectors were expelled from Iraq, is far from reliable.
Britain's
security and intelligence agencies also dismiss U.S. claims that
Mohammed Atta, who is accused of allegedly leading hijacker in the
September 11 attacks, previously met an Iraqi intelligence officer in
Prague.
Blair's
talks with Bush in Texas at the weekend are likely to focus as much on
the current explosion of violence in the Middle East as on Iraq, and
the growing European demands for Israel to rethink its policy of
repression.
The
two leaders will discuss the political, military and diplomatic
consequences of military action, including the need for a specific
U.N. resolution supporting the action.
Blair
will press for sanctions against Iraq to be revised, and for clear
demands to be imposed on Saddam's future behavior. The leaders will
also assess the scale of the continuing Taliban resistance in
Afghanistan, including an offensive by British troops, the online
paper added.
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