By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday defended the need for going to war with Iraq, citing the potential threat of terrorists arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction if former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had remained in power (see GSN, July 17).
In a rare address before a joint session of Congress, Blair stressed the threat terrorism poses to international security, including the risk that terrorist groups might ally themselves with states seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. For example, according to Blair, Iraq under Hussein was known to have supported and sheltered such organizations.
“When you lead countries, as we both do, and you see the potential for this threat of terrorism and weapons of mass of destruction to come together, I really don’t believe that any responsible leader could ignore the evidence that we see and the threat that we face,” Blair said during a joint press conference with U.S. President George W. Bush following his address. “And that’s why we’ve taken the action that we have, first in Afghanistan and now in Iraq,” Blair said.
Even if the threat of terrorists working together with rogue states remains unrealized, “history will forgive” the decision to go to war because of the brutality of the Hussein regime, Blair told Congress, adding that he did believe such weapons would be found.
“Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together? Let us say one thing: If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive,” Blair said.
“But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership,” Blair said. “That is something history will not forgive,” he said.
For his part, Bush said yesterday he was confident that the decision to go to war was justified, citing the threat Iraq posed to U.S. security.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Blair, Bush said, “The regime of Saddam Hussein was a grave and growing threat. Given Saddam’s history of violence and aggression, it would have been reckless to place our trust in his sanity or restraint,” Bush said. “As long as I hold this office, I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the goodwill of dangerous enemies,” he said.
Bush also said he believed that coalition forces would find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and evidence of efforts to produce such weapons. He blamed the lack of progress so far in the WMD hunt on the postwar chaos in the country, Hussein’s history of hiding weapons from international inspectors and a lack of cooperation by former Iraqi officials.
“But, yeah, we will bring the weapons,” Bush said. “And, of course, we will bring the information forward on the weapons when they find them. And that’ll … end all this speculation,” he added.
During the press conference, Blair reiterated his support for a claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa prior to the war.
“The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine,” Blair said. “We stand by that intelligence,” he said.
The uranium claim was included in a September 2002 British dossier on Iraq’s WMD programs, which Bush cited when he made the allegation in his State of the Union address in January. The White House has admitted, however, that the claim should not have been included in Bush’s address.
Bush refused to directly answer whether he took personal responsibility for the inclusion of the claim into the State of the Union, instead praising U.S. and British intelligence.
“First, I take responsibility for putting our troops into action. And I made that decision because Saddam Hussein was a threat to our security and a threat to the security of other nations,” Bush said. “I take responsibility for making the decision, the tough decision to put together a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein, because the intelligence — not only our intelligence but the intelligence of this great country [the United Kingdom] — made a clear and compelling case that Saddam Hussein was a threat to security and peace,” he said.
Working to find a way to include the controversial Iraq-Niger charge in the President George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, a White House official repeatedly modified the claim until a CIA official affirmed its accuracy, according to the CIA official’s testimony to a Senate committee this week (see GSN, July 17).
Ultimately, in his January speech, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The White House this month, however, acknowledged that the claim should not have been included in the address, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday stood by the charge (see related GSN story, today).
During a closed hearing Wednesday of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA WMD expert Alan Foley described a prespeech meeting with National Security Council nonproliferation director Robert Joseph. Foley’s testimony was described by unnamed senior intelligence officials.
Joseph asked Foley if Bush’s address could include a reference to Iraq attempting to obtain uranium from Niger, but he told Joseph that the CIA was not certain about the credibility of the Niger claim and recommended that it not be included. The CIA had previously prevented a reference to Niger from appearing in an October 2002 Bush speech.
Foley then told the committee that Joseph asked him whether the speech could refer to British intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa. Foley said he told Joseph that the CIA had warned the United Kingdom about uncertainties concerning the claim when the British government included it in a September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s WMD efforts.
Foley said Joseph then asked him whether it would be accurate to say that the British report said Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, and Foley said he agreed. Foley did not tell the committee, however, that he had felt pressured by Joseph, officials familiar with Foley’s testimony said.
A senior Bush administration official denied Foley’s account, saying that none of the drafts of the State of the Union contained a specific reference to Niger.
“If that was the testimony, it is not an accurate accounting of events,” the senior administration official said. “There was never at any time a mention of place or amount in any draft of the State of the Union,” the official added (Risen/Sanger, New York Times, July 18).
Committee member Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said CIA Director George Tenet’s and other officials’ testimony in Wednesday’s hearing demonstrated that the White House ignored warnings to not include the Africa uranium claim in the State of the Union address.
“They weren’t searching for the right words, they were searching a way around the obvious,” Durbin said.
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the committee expects to hear testimony in coming weeks from the CIA inspector general and U.S. Defense Department and intelligence officials overseeing the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Committee members also said they wanted to examine memos and other communications between the CIA and the White House during the negotiations over the State of the Union.
“We will take this inquiry wherever it goes,” Roberts said (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, July 18).
Senator John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said the committee is “looking at people in the executive branch, including the White House.” Both Republicans and Democrats are concerned “about the further implication beyond Tenet,” Rockefeller said (Pincus/Priest, Washington Post, July 18).
Iraqi Scientists Says Aluminum Tubes Were Not Meant for Centrifuges
Meanwhile, an Iraqi scientist recently told the CIA that high-strength aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were never intended for use in centrifuges to enrich uranium, counter to previous U.S. assertions, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, June 27).
Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, who has provided centrifuge components and documents to the United States, has firmly denied that the tubes were intended for centrifuges both in discussions with U.N. weapons inspectors and later in discussions with the CIA, said former U.N. inspector David Albright.
“Before the war he took the position the tubes weren’t for centrifuges, and after the war” — when there was little fear of retribution — “he told them the same thing,” Albright said.
In addition, Obeidi “also said that since ‘91 they hadn’t resurrected a nuclear weapon program,” Albright said (Charles Hanley, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 17).
Iraqi Ricin Efforts
The head of an Iraqi program to weaponize ricin has said that, after a failed 1991 field test, Baghdad ceased its efforts, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Prior to the recent war in Iraq, U.S. officials had cited Iraq’s research into weaponizing ricin as evidence of Iraq’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to the Journal. Iraqi scientist Shakir al-Akidy, who headed the ricin program, said, however, that Iraq had lacked the knowledge to turn ricin into a usable military weapon.
Iraqi scientists conducted research on ricin for two years, from 1989 to 1991, at the Salman Pak facility, according to the Journal. While they had some success in producing small amounts of the toxin, which were refined and tested on animals, they were never successful in producing a highly concentrated form, al-Akidy said.
In 1991, a group of Iraqi scientists conducted a field test using ricin, the Journal reported. The toxin was loaded into an artillery shell that was detonated near encaged small animals. Once the shell exploded, those animals not killed by the blast were taken away for observation, according to two Iraqis involved in the experiment. While three animals died over the next two months from suspected ricin poisoning, most showed no effect, according to the Journal.
Soon after the 1991 test, the ricin program was discontinued, al-Akidy said. The ricin Iraq had been able to produce was either used up in testing or destroyed, he said.
“Ricin is very difficult to isolate,” al-Akidy said. “What we made was very crude, not useful for military applications. We threw everything away and that was the end,” he said (David Cloud, Wall Street Journal, July 18).
The U.S. Senate passed a $368.6 billion defense spending bill last night, but the measure did not include any funding for military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 27).
The bill falls $3.1 billion short of U.S. President George W. Bush’s request, but the president is likely to seek more money for operations in the Middle East from later bills.
The U.S. Defense Department spends $3.9 billion each month on operations in Iraq and about $950 million monthly on Afghanistan.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the top ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Bush was trying to mislead the public by not including “one thin dime in the budget” for Iraq or Afghanistan (Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18).
“We should put an end to this shell game of allowing the administration to hide the cost of occupation by using supplemental appropriations bills,” Byrd said (Carl Hulse, New York Times, July 18).
| 
Back to top
