Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Britain: Parliamentary Probe Exposes Lies on Iraqi Weapons Part 3: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw by Robert Stevens and Richard Tyler 07 Jul 03 The following is the conclusion of a three-part series of articles. Part 1: Clare Short, Robin Cook and Andrew Gilligan was posted July 3. and Part 2: Andrew Wilkie and Dr Ibrahim al-Marashi was published July 4. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee investigation into whether Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government distorted intelligence material to justify its war against Iraq is to publish its report today. From extensive leaks to the press, there is every reason to suppose that the Labour-dominated parliamentary committee will largely exonerate the government. However, some of the testimony given to the inquiry contradicts such a conclusion clearly exposing the way the British government set out to sell a previously determined decision to go to war by claiming that Iraq possessed 'weapons of mass destruction'. In order that this information does not remain buried amidst thousands of pages of undigested transcripts, the World Socialist Web Site is publishing a précis of the most important testimony given. [World Socialist Web Site] 6:47:32 PM  Google It!

A Diplomat's Undiplomatic Truth: They Lied by Robert Scheer 08 Jul 03 They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document - now known to be a crude forgery - that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either. What is startling in Wilson's account, however, is that the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the vice president's office were all informed that the Niger-Iraq connection was phony. No one in the chain of command disputed that this 'evidence' of Iraq's revised nuclear weapons program was a hoax. [WorkingForChange] 6:34:39 AM  Google It!

Is Niger the Smoking Gun? Blair Under Fire as White House Rejects British Intelligence Claiming Iraq Tried to Buy Uranium by Ben Russell and Andrew Buncombe 09 Jul 03 The White House has dealt a devastating blow to Tony Blair by rejecting as flawed British claims that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy uranium from Africa to restart his nuclear weapons programme. The Bush administration was in full retreat yesterday with officials admitting that the allegation should not have been included in President George Bush's State of the Union address. The American admission represented the first serious split between London and Washington over the case against Saddam and exploded into a full-scale row in Westminster as Mr Blair told senior MPs that the Government was standing by its story. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers demanded that Mr Blair release the intelligence behind the allegation to an independent inquiry. [Independent/UK] 6:29:07 AM  Google It!