No Doubt

Tony Blair, while maintaining that finding evidence of WMD is "not the most urgent priority", continues to insist that he has "absolutely no doubt" that evidence of Saddam's WMD programme will in time turn up because, get this, "Saddam’s history of weapons of mass destruction is not some invention of the British security services."

Uh, has anybody at any point in time denied Saddam's "history of weapons of mass destruction"? Even if we interpret "history" to mean a history of intransigence with regards to weapons inspectors, Blair's reassurances leave much to be desired. The high-level claims of Saddam's ongoing WMD programme weren't based on "history", they were (supposedly) based on hard intelligence. You know, Colin Powell and the satellite imagery.

If Tony Blair has "absolutely no doubt", then on what evidence -- other than Saddam's "history" -- does he base his "no doubt"? And if Hans Blix was "starting to suspect", before the war, that there were no weapons, why didn't Blair share his "no doubt" evidence with UNMOVIC?

Blair also claims to have evidence "which is not yet public" because he is waiting to "assemble" it and then "present it properly". This of course raises the question whether repeatedly heralding a "possible" WMD find, only to quietly announce a few days later that it was just pesticide, should be considered a "proper" presentation of "evidence".

Not that there has ever been any "doubt" that Tony Blair's been lying straight out of his fucking hole. But does he really need to insult our collective intelligence with such obviously illogical claptrap?

Posted by Eddie Tews at June 2, 2003 05:41 PM