Alleged Iraqi WMD May Never be Found, Blair Says

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that prewar Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction may never be found (see GSN, June 7).

“We know [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but we know we haven’t found them,” Blair said. “I have to accept we have not found them, that we may not find them,” he said.

Blair also said, though, that even if banned weapons are not found in Iraq, Hussein still posed a threat.

“They could have been removed, they could have been hidden, they could have been destroyed,” Blair said. “The truth is, he was a threat,” he added (Mike Peacock, Reuters, July 6).

Meanwhile, former British special envoy to Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock, said Sunday that he had been “wrong” to claim that prewar Iraq possessed large biological and chemical weapons stockpiles, according to the London Telegraph (Jones/Smith, London Telegraph, July 5).

The United Kingdom’s inquiry into British prewar intelligence on Iraq is expected to criticize two top British intelligence officials — Joint Intelligence Committee head John Scarlett and MI6 chief Richard Dearlove, according to Agence France-Presse.

The inquiry’s report is set to criticize the committee, which coordinates British intelligence efforts, for not including caveats from MI6 in the British government’s 2002 dossier on prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts, according to AFP. The inquiry is expected to criticize MI6 for its poor assessments of prewar Iraq’s WMD efforts, AFP reported.

In addition to Scarlett and Dearlove, the inquiry is expected to criticize British Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, according to AFP. A report on the inquiry’s findings is set to be released July 14 (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 4)

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