Tuesday, January 13, 2004
MORE EMBARRASSEMENTS FOR PRO-WAR CASE First up, the easy one, an academic at the US Army War College has just presented a report arguing that toppling Saddam was a strategic error because Saddam was "deterred". (He also says that defeating al Quaeda and stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will prove to be unsustainable in the long run, which sounds quite alarming, particulraly in light of the fact that there is no choice but to do so. But that's another story) So, Saddam was "deterred"? No, he wasn't, and if you want to find out why, you could do worse than my posting from November 17 or go straight to David Aaronovitch's piece. More startling however may the PM's apparent change in tune:
Tony Blair yesterday signalled that weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq, in his first admission of fallibility over the central justification he gave for going to war with Iraq.
Quite a contrast to his former bullish self. This will however have to go further. In order for the public to regain confidence in our governmental and defence intelligence capabilities, the PM will ultimately have to come entirely clean and admit that the issue of wmds was hyped up. He will then have to explain why and how he -and presumeably Bush as well- decided to base their case for war on the intelligence community's worst case scenario. Nothing less will do.
Tony Blair yesterday signalled that weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq, in his first admission of fallibility over the central justification he gave for going to war with Iraq.
Quite a contrast to his former bullish self. This will however have to go further. In order for the public to regain confidence in our governmental and defence intelligence capabilities, the PM will ultimately have to come entirely clean and admit that the issue of wmds was hyped up. He will then have to explain why and how he -and presumeably Bush as well- decided to base their case for war on the intelligence community's worst case scenario. Nothing less will do.
