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We don’t need to wait for Chilcot, Blair lied to us about Iraq. Here’s the evidence.
By Peter Oborne / opendemocracy.net
Two weeks ago I found myself in conversation with Dr Hans Blix, head of the United Nations weapons inspection team ahead of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Dr Blix told me that Tony Blair’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were simply not an accurate reflection of the intelligence provided to the British government.
“The big difference in the British dossier,” Dr Blix told me, “was that they simply asserted that these items are there. But when Mr Blair asserts that there were weapons, well that’s an assertion and it was not supported by evidence. Both the UK and the US replaced question marks by exclamation marks. I certainly think it was a misrepresentation.”
Both the UK and the US replaced question marks by exclamation marks. (Hans Blix)
He was talking about how cautious assessments were turned into bold statements by Blair and the UK government. For example, intelligence chiefs gave this assessment on March 15 2002: “Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles programmes is sporadic and patchy.”
Three weeks later, the prime minister stridently claimed: “We know that he [Saddam Hussein] has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons.”
Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat http://philosophers-stone.co.uk
Source: http://www.philosophers-stone.co.uk/?p=5751
