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In
the Press This Week
The WMD
Fiasco
(May 24
2003 – May 31 2003)
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By
V&A Editorial Staff
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31/05/2003
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From
The New York Times
(May
25 2003)
The
C.I.A. is snooping around itself and other spy agencies to see if
prewar reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al
Qaeda were exaggerated…
When
Colin Powell went to the U.N. in February to make the case for
attacking Iraq, he raised the specter of 25,000 liters of anthrax,
tons of chemical weapons and a dictator on the brink of a nuclear
bomb.
Flash
forward to May. Stymied U.S. arms inspectors are getting ready to
leave Iraq, having uncovered moldy vacuum cleaners, pesticides and
playground equipment, but nary a WMD…
The
Iraq WMD's and ties to Al Qaeda were merely MacGuffins, as Alfred
Hitchcock called devices that drove the plot but were otherwise
inconsequential…
By
the time the C.I.A. delivers its report, it will be time to
investigate how our intelligence was hyped in the prelude to the
strike on Iran.
Yo,
Ayatollahs!
From
The Independent
(May
29 2003)
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…"
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…
Alan
Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said… "If it's right
Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq
complied with the United Nations resolution 1441."
The
build-up to war: What they said
Intelligence
leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal
weapons
George
Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003
We
are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say
that such a claim is palpably absurd
Tony
Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
Saddam's
removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of
mass destruction
Jack
Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003
Before
people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I
suggest they wait a bit
Tony
Blair 28 April, 2003
It
is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to
the conflict
Donald
Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003
The
case for war is blown apart
From
The Guardian
(May
29 2003)
Declaring
that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, should have been
allowed to carry on with his work, Mr Cook mocked Mr Blair's claims
about the Iraqi threat. "We were told that Saddam had weapons
ready for use within 45 minutes. It is now 45 days since the the war
finished and we still not have found anything... We could have
avoided this war…"
Blair
faces revolt as US admits doubts
From
The Washington Post
(May
31 2003)
President
Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said
were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S.
forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass
destruction" that were the United States' primary justification
for going to war.
"You
remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of
the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to
build biological weapons," Bush said in an interview before
leaving today on a seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle East.
"They're illegal. They're against the United Nations
resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.
"And
we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But
for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices
or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
Bush:
'We Found' Banned Weapons
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