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A
journalist holds a copy of a dossier setting out Blair’s case
for military action against Iraq
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LONDON,
September 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq is as little as a
year or two away from having a nuclear bomb, and it could deploy
chemical and biological weapons in no more than 45 minutes, the British
government alleged Tuesday, September 24.
In
a 55-page dossier, it alleged that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
“attaches great importance to possessing weapons of mass destruction
(and) does not regard them only as weapons of last resort”, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“Despite
sanctions, the policy of containment has not worked sufficiently well to
prevent Saddam from developing these weapons,” wrote Prime Minister
Tony Blair in the dossier’s foreword.
“He
has to be stopped,” added Blair, as the House of Commons convened for
an emergency debate on whether Britain should join a possible U.S.-led
war on Iraq aimed at overthrowing Saddam’s regime.
Blair
was to meet later Tuesday in London with German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder, who narrowly won re-election Sunday after campaigning against
U.S. President George W. Bush's hard line on Iraq.
Baghdad
greeted the British report - the product of the government's secretive
Joint Intelligence Committee - as “baseless," and military
analysts in London said that on first reading, it offered little new
information.
“It
does not produce any convincing evidence, or any ‘killer fact’, that
says that Saddam Hussein has to be taken out straight away,” said
Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies.
"What
it does do is produce very convincing evidence that (United Nations)
weapons inspectors have to be pushed back into Iraq very quickly,"
he said.
The
report alleged that:
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Iraq
has continued, since the 1991 Gulf War, to produce chemical and
biological agents for eventual use in weapons.
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It
has “military plans for the use of chemical and biological
weapons, including against its own Shia population,” and that
“some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an
order to use them.”
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Iraq
could produce a nuclear weapons in “between one and two years”
if it could get fissile material, such as uranium, and “other
essential components” from foreign sources.
(That
is a more conservative time frame from the one given on September 9 by
the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based
think-tank, which said Iraq could make nuclear weapons "within
months" with foreign help.)
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Iraq
has sought “significant quantities of uranium from Africa” and
recalled specialists to work on its nuclear program derailed by U.N.
inspectors prior to their departure four years ago.
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It
has “illegally" retained up to 20 al-Hussein missiles capable
of hitting Israel or Cyprus, where Britain has military bases, and
is developing longer-range missiles that could reach as far as Oman,
the Iran-Afghan border and most of Turkey.
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It
has “learnt lessons from previous U.N. weapons inspections” and
begun already to hide “sensitive equipment and documentation”
even after telling that United Nations last week that it will accept
a return of inspectors.
Giving
Iraq’s first reaction, Culture Minister Hamad Yussef Hammadi said the
dossier was “baseless” and part of a “campaign of lies
orchestrated by world Zionism.”
“All
the reports presented to the U.N. by former weapons inspectors have
shown that Iraq does not possess such weapons which were destroyed
either by the teams of inspectors or by Iraq itself,” Hammadi said.
Blair
is the European leader who most strongly backs Bush’s tough line on
Iraq, though his government is putting a greater accent on disarming
Iraq than on “regime change” in Baghdad.
Meanwhile,
French President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday that his government has
“indications” that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, but
that U.N. weapons inspectors will need to provide proof.
“On
these questions, we obviously have indications although no proof, and
this is, incidentally, one of the reasons why we insist firmly that the
inspectors return” to Iraq, Chirac told the closing news conference of
the Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) in Copenhagen.
Chirac
said that he “naturally” had no advance knowledge of evidence on
Iraq’s capabilities presented by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on
Tuesday.
