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London, Sunday, October 5, 2003  Cook: 'Blair
admitted to me that Saddam had no usable
WMD' By Colin Brown
Political Editor TONY Blair privately admitted
that Saddam Hussein could not attack British
or United States troops with chemical or biological
weapons two weeks before Britain went to war
against Iraq, Robin Cook alleges today.
The claim by the former foreign secretary that
the Prime Minister misled Parliament and committed
Britain to an illegal war is made in his memoirs,
which he sold to The Sunday Times for a
reputed £400,000. Mr Cook recalls how he was
given an intelligence briefing on Iraq by John
Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint
Intelligence Committee, who has since given
evidence to the Hutton Inquiry. Mr Cook said: "The presentation was impressive in its
integrity and shorn of the political slant with
which No 10 encumbers any intelligence
assessment."My conclusion at the end of an hour is that
Saddam probably does not have weapons of mass
destruction in the sense of weapons that could
be used against large-scale civilian
targets." Two weeks later, on March 5, Mr Cook discussed
the Scarlett briefing with Mr Blair. Mr Cook told
Mr Blair he doubted Saddam had weapons of mass
destruction that could strike strategic cities, but
he might have battlefield weapons which could be
used against British and US troops. "[Blair
replied]: 'Yes, but all the effort he has had
to put into concealment makes it difficult for him
to assemble them quickly for use.' " Those remarks appeared to contradict directly
the assertion in the September Iraq dossier that
Saddam could make his WMD ready for use in 45
minutes - the claim at the centre of the
allegations by the BBC that led ultimately to the
death of Dr David Kelly, the Government's
weapons expert who killed himself shortly after
appearing before the Commons foreign affairs select
committee. Mr Cook continues: "There were two distinct elements to
this exchange that sent me away deeply troubled.
The first was that the timetable to war was
plainly not driven by the progress of the UN
weapons inspections. Tony made no attempt to
pretend that what Hans Blix [the chief UN
weapons inspector] might report would make
any difference to the countdown to invasion."The second troubling element to our
conversation was that Tony did not try to argue
me out of the view that Saddam did not have real
weapons of mass destruction that were designed
for strategic use against city populations and
capable of being delivered with reliability over
long distances." Mr Cook also discloses that Mr Blair told him
the US President George W Bush wanted to go
to war in September last year, but was restrained
by Mr Blair from doing so. Mr Cook also discloses details of Cabinet
discussions at which ministers raised serious
concerns about the looming conflict. However, more
surprisingly, Mr Cook claims that Gordon
Brown, previously thought to be a sceptic about
the war, delivered a "long and passionate statement
of support" of the Prime Minister's strategy at a
Cabinet meeting on March 13. As Mr Blair flew home last night from an EU
summit in Rome, a Downing Street spokesman said:
"The idea that the Prime Minister ever said that
Saddam Hussein did not have WMD is
absurd." © Copyright of
Telegraph Group Limited 2003. 
316
Iraq war deaths to date: a vivid graph-
Jerusalem Post
names Paul Wolfowitz as its Man of the (Jewish)
Year for urging preemptive strike against
Iraq
-
New York Times
The
Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons | commentary by
Stephen Sniegoski: "The obvious truth is that
the Bush Administration lied to get the country
into war"
-
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