Former Blair cabinet official: Blair and Bush in "secret" plan, "duped us" into

[Atlanta Skins Fan]

...war. [title of thread cut off by accident]

Clare Short, a member of Tony Blair's cabinet until the war was over, has attacked Blair publicly -- saying he made a "secret" agreement with Bush in August to go to war, lied to his own cabinet, and "duped us" into war.

In a TV interview over the weekend, she was quoted:

"I have concluded that the prime minister had decided to go to war in August sometime and he duped us all along," she said.

Short's charges are explored more fully in this article from the Guardian:

Short: Blair lied to cabinet and made secret war pact with US

Tory threat to break ranks on Iraq

Nicholas Watt and Michael White in Evian

Monday June 2, 2003

The Guardian

Tony Blair is facing mounting pressure from across the House of Commons to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war after Clare Short levelled the incendiary allegation at the prime minister that he had lied to the cabinet.

As an increasingly exasperated prime minister once again swept aside calls for a public inquiry into the failure to uncover banned Iraqi weapons, the former international development secretary accused Mr Blair of bypassing the cabinet to agree a "secret" pact with George Bush to go to war.

To compound the prime minister's difficulties - as MPs prepare to return to Westminster tomorrow after the Whitsun recess - Robin Cook demanded an independent inquiry into the "monumental blunder" by the government.

His criticisms were echoed last night by the Tories who said they were giving "very serious consideration" to calls for an inquiry.

Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, indicated to the BBC last night that the Tories were considering abandoning their bipartisan approach to Iraq because of fears that Downing Street might have "doctored" last year's dossier on Iraq's banned weapons to strengthen the case for war.

The interventions by such senior figures from across the house gave heart to Labour MPs who are planning to ambush the prime minister on Wednesday at his weekly Commons appearance and during a subsequent statement on the G8 summit.

They are demanding an emergency Commons statement after an unnamed intelligence source told the BBC last week that Downing Street had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.

Tam Dalyell, the father of the house who has a question to the prime minister on Wednesday's Commons order paper, is expected to step up the pressure by asking about Ms Short's accusation that he was deceitful to the cabinet on three occasions.

In her BBC interview yesterday, she accused Mr Blair of:

• Agreeing in "secret" with Mr Bush at Camp David last September to go to war - and then telling the cabinet that he would try to act as a constraint on the US.
  
• Misleading the cabinet over Iraq's weapons capability - by "spinning" the claim that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes. "Where the spin came was the suggestion that it was all weaponised, ready to go, immediately dangerous, likely to get into the hands of al-Qaida, and therefore things were very very urgent."
  
• Falsely telling the cabinet and the world that Jacques Chirac, the French president, would veto a second UN security council resolution authorising war. The transcript of Mr Chirac's interview, which she subsequently read, showed the prime minister's claim to be wrong.

Ms Short, who was widely criticised after she failed to carry out a threat to resign on the eve of war, accused the prime minister of riding roughshod over the conventions of cabinet. "It was all done in Tony Blair's study ... The normal Whitehall systems to make big decisions like this broke down and were very personalised in No 10."

Warning that civil servants and troops were ready to disobey an order to go to war, Ms Short said that the prime minister swung round the Whitehall machinery at the last moment when the attorney general declared that military action would be legal. But she added: "I think, given the attorney's advice, it was legal. But I think the route we got there didn't honour the legality questions."

Some of her criticisms were echoed by the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who demanded an independent inquiry into the failure to uncover any weapons of mass destruction, despite the dire warnings from Downing Street.

"It is beginning to look as if the government's committed a monumental blunder," he told The World This Weekend on Radio 4.

"The government should admit it was wrong and they need to set up then a thorough independent inquiry into how they got it wrong so that it never happens again and we never again send British troops into action on the basis of a mistake."

As a growing number of Labour MPs joined the clamour for an emergency statement and a full investigation by the parliamentary intelligence committee, an angry prime minister hit back at his critics.

Speaking en route to Evian, Mr Blair predicted that the next US-UK intelligence dossier on Saddam Hussein's arsenal would make sceptical voters "very well satisfied" that he was right.

Expressing frustration about what he sees as his critics' attempt to refight the war by other means, Mr Blair insisted for the third time in as many days that intelligence reports had not been doctored under political pressure and would be vindicated.

Appealing for voters to be patient, he declared: "I have said throughout that when this is put together, the evidence of the scientists and witnesses, the investigations from the sites, people will be very well satisfied."

The new dossier on which Downing Street pins its hopes will be produced by US intelligence and weapons inspection teams which are now fanning out over Iraq while colleagues work on humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

Blair has angrily rejected the charges from Short, calling her "a liar." Described as "sweating profusely" during interviews at the G8 conference, Blair also rejected any independent inquiry into the Iraq war justification. The Independent reports today that the controversy may be "more serious than Watergate":

The Independent

Blair rounds on Short and war critics

By Andy McSmith in Evian and Paul Waugh in London

03 June 2003

Tony Blair's frustration with claims that he misled the nation over the war on Iraq boiled over yesterday when he made an unprecedented attack on Clare Short, calling her a liar, and rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the affair.

After days of mounting pressure, the Prime Minister was forced to issue his strongest denial that Downing Street had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Sweating profusely at a G8 summit press conference in Evian, Mr Blair appeared uncomfortable in the extreme as he rebutted charges his spin machine had "duped" the country into war. He even adopted the logic of his critics, who have long demanded evidence of his pretext for war, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and represented an imminent threat to the West.

Denying accusations that he had deliberately misled the nation, Mr Blair said: "I think it is important that if people actually have evidence that they produce it. But it is wrong, frankly, for people to make allegations on the basis of so-called anonymous sources, when the facts are precisely the facts we have stated."

Labour MPs intensified demands for a full investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence reports about Baghdad's weapons. Mr Blair will come under fresh pressure from MPs tomorrow when he makes a Commons statement. One Labour backbencher said the issue was as serious as the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon.

Amid claims that Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's communications chief, could become the scapegoat for the controversy, the Tories added to the pressure by warning that key questions were unanswered.

Today, Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, becomes the first leader of a mainstream political party to demand an inquiry. Writing in The Independent, Mr Kennedy says Mr Blair's attempts to make the case for war have seriously harmed his standing and trust in the Government.

Clearly angry that the allegations had overshadowed his six-day tour of Iraq, Poland, Russia and France, Mr Blair ruled out yesterday an independent inquiry into the events leading up to the war. He said he stood "100 per cent" behind the evidence in government dossiers on the Iraqi threat and rejected claims that information was "sexed up" to justify the war. But the allegation that appeared to have provoked Mr Blair more than any other was Ms Short's claim that there was no real Cabinet role in the decisions leading up to the war, because everything of importance was decided "secretly" by Mr Blair and George Bush.

His discomfiture was increased by the sweltering heat during his press conference in a crowded marquee where the air conditioning had been switched off for almost an hour.

"The idea that apparently Clare Short is saying I made some secret agreement with George Bush back last September that we would invade Iraq in any event at a particular time is completely and totally untrue," he said. "Charges should have evidence but there is none.'' Mr Blair said every single piece of intelligence presented by Downing Street was cleared "very properly" by the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr Blair insisted critics should wait until the 1,400 US, British and Australian investigators sent in to search for Iraq's weapons had finished work. "The idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability of delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false," he said.

An international survey group on WMD was starting its work this week interviewing scientists and experts. "When we accumulate that evidence properly we will give it to people. I have no doubt at all the assessments made by the British intelligence services will turn out to be correct," he said.

Ahmed Chalabi, president of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, told BBC's Newsnight it was "unlikely" that the claim that Iraq's weapons could be launched within 45 minutes had come from anyone linked to his organisation.

Malcolm Savidge, Labour MP for Aberdeen North and one of 73 MPs who have signed a Commons motion calling for the Government's evidence to be published in full, said: "I cannot conceive of a more serious accusation than that Parliament and the people could have been misled into being brought into a war on false pretences. That to me is more serious than Watergate."

3 June 2003 11:47

[carlsbadd]

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[@DCGoldPants]

Dude, even if you're right about all of this, it doesn't matter anymore.

The people on this thread aren't going to agree with you and the style that you've brought all this information here makes you just unpopular.

I'm not some sheep following the current admin and to be honest, I'm not a big fan of theirs.

But of course there are shady backrooms dealings going on. There always are. The point that keeps getting away is that Saddam was a evil person who killed his own people.

Have you read any article about the video's his son was keeping? In the long run hopefully this was the right thing to do. It's hard to forget whatever reason it was that we got into this but that's done and if the President or the Prime Minister lied about this over and over again, then yes its worse than lying about banging some interm because people died over it. Somehow I doubt that leaving Iraq alone would of been a good idea.

[fansince62]

- handsome young philly! and quite experienced in defense policy...

hmmmmm

- always a leader!

harumph!

read her bios and white papers. staunch environmentalist. defender of the poor and underrepresented. a true saint. she may even be right on many points. but she arrived at the aprty withi a distinct poltical bent that is hardly "unbiased".......she has an agenda.....you know....like all those evil, evil people in the Bush adminstration

[redman]

"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there isn't someone after me!" - ASF

[fansince62]

redman....true enough

question is whether said someone is wearing a white suit and sporting a huge net!......