Posted 4:29 PM by Dil
CLARKE HITS OUT AT BLAIR

BY ZOE HUGHES

16:00 - 11 July 2003

Ken Clarke yesterday hit out at the Prime Minister's insistence weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, warning it was completely "unjustified".

The Rushcliffe MP and ex-Chancellor said Tony Blair's entire case for war against Iraq was flawed despite pledges by Downing Street that "concrete evidence" of weapons of mass destruction would soon be uncovered. The Prime Minister has recently been forced on the back foot over the war in Iraq following the Government's "dodgy dossier" published earlier this year and the failure to uncover any weapons of mass destruction.

Now Mr Clarke has also joined in, saying weapons should have been found by now.

"The case was based on the need to go to war to protect the authority of the United Nations and repel the imminent threat being posed by this man (Saddam Hussein) who had weapons of mass destruction which could be mobilised, leaving aside the 45 minutes (claim).

"The whole point was that this was a great threat that had to be tackled now, that couldn't wait for Hans Blix (the UN's chief weapons inspector), for inspections, for sanctions or supervision.

"It was desperately important that you invaded and toppled the regime next week.

"They are not going to find anything to justify that.

"It was nonsense that there was anything there. If there was anything there remotely ready for use it would have been found by now."

Speaking at a Westminster lunch, he said the Prime Minister's case for war could be seen as "at best mistaken and at worst bogus".

The problem for Mr Blair, he added, was that America had decided to go to war "quite early last year".

"They decided in Washington that this would be a project to use American power to restore order to the Middle East, tackle the problem of rogue states and restore a more democratic Western order in Iraq. It was about regime change."

Posted 8:35 AM by Dil
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/07/06/do0602.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/07/06/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=71263
Hastings - messianic moral fervour into war?

I believe that Blair's real motives for joining the war were partly to sustain the Atlantic alliance, which was reasonable enough, but chiefly to pursue his own idealistic international vision. WMDs provided only a pretext.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/07/06/do0606.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/07/06/ixportal.html
jOHN sIMPSON - BBC needs to hold firm