The paper says “trusting” British and Americans have been fooled by their leaders

LONDON, April 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Four weeks have already passed since the U.S. and U.K. waged their illegal war on Iraq to disarm Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from alleged weapons of mass destruction, the menace to the entire world. So where are they? Asked a respected British newspaper Sunday, April 20. 

As the world is being distracted by the scenes of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, children maimed at play, looting of time-honored museums and unprecedented anarchy, The Independent is keen on placing the proclaimed purpose of this war on center stage.     

“But, Mr. Blair, where are they? A month has passed since American and British troops entered Iraq, more than a week since the fall of Baghdad. But thus far not even a sniff. Not a drum of VX or mustard gas, not a phial of anthrax, not a shred of evidence that Iraq was assembling a nuclear weapons program,” the daily wrote.

The mass-circulation paper said that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presentation before the U.N. Security Council two months ago was nothing but a charade.

“The charts, the grainy intelligence satellite pictures, the crackly tapes of the intercepted phone conversations among Iraqi officials? How plausible it all sounded, especially when propounded by the most plausible figure in the Bush administration.

“And what about those other claims, wheeled out on various occasions by Messrs Bush, Blair, Cheney and Rumsfeld? The Iraqi drones that were supposed to be able to attack the U.S. east coast, the imports of aluminum tubes allegedly intended for centrifuges to enrich uranium, the unaccounted-for lethal nerve and germ agents,” it said.

“All, it seems, egregious products of the imagination of the intelligence services – one commodity whose existence need never be doubted.”

Never Trust Your Leaders Again

The Independent said the British people and the American have been fooled by their leaders and believed that the U.S.-led troops would “liberate Iraq.”

It said that U.S. and U.K. officials give their fabricated reasons “from behind their comfortable screen of anonymity,” noting that were pretty sure that “their reasonable and trusting people, mostly accepted the word of their rulers.”

“Oh yes, we know a lot more, but if we told you, we would be showing our hand to Saddam and endangering precious intelligence sources.

“Just believe us, old boy, the Government told us, and you'll see we were right all along,” it said.

The paper further said that if the U.S. and U.K. allegations were right, so why did not Saddam use “his WMDs” to deter the invaders? 

“Indeed, it collapses at the first serious examination. Why should Saddam part with his most effective means of defense, when the survival of his regime and himself was on the line?” It wondered.

Well, Saddam is now gone, it added, and with him has disappeared any conceivable risk to those intelligence sources (assuming they ever existed).

“So just what was this information on the basis of which Washington and its faithful ally launched an unprovoked invasion of a ramshackle third world country? A country with a very nasty regime to be sure, but not a great deal nastier than some other potential candidates for “liberation” in the Middle East and elsewhere,” it said.

“If only for the credibility and reputation of our country, this newspaper hopes that enough weapons of mass destruction will be discovered to justify a war that has grievously weakened the UN, strained the Atlantic alliance and split the European Union.

The paper concluded its editorial by saying that the Bush administration and Prime Minister Tony Blair should provide their hard evidence on their claims or they would be held accountable for waging illegal war.

“Having rushed into war to suit its own military and domestic electoral timetable, the Bush administration now has the nerve to claim that a year may be required to establish the whereabouts of the WMDs.

“This pointless war cannot be un-made. If no "smoking gun" has turned up by then, a full parliamentary inquiry is essential – into the competence and accountability of the intelligence services, and into how our Government used them to sell a mistaken and reckless policy,” it said.