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Why Blair was convinced by the intelligence in his fight against evil :

In this extract, Hans Blix casts light on the PM's crucial role. From the
autumn of 2002, Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, was engaged in
an increasingly frantic round of diplomatic talks, in London and Paris as
well as Washington and at the UN headquarters in New York. In November, UN
inspectors went to Iraq for the first time for four years. The Bush
administration said they would not be allowed to do their job - Blix shows
that many around the president did not want Saddam to allow them to do their
job.
As war seemed increasingly inevitable with the build-up of US and British
troops in the Gulf, Blix was confronted with an increasingly hostile
American administration. He describes how he became a victim of smears and
dirty tricks.
As Blix came under growing pressure from Washington, he describes how Tony
Blair - convinced by claims from the intelligence agencies - made
increasingly desperate attempts to get a new UN resolution.

2002
September
I saw Tony Blair in London. All seemed at this time to favour inspection
rather than invasion ... In his preface to a report of September 2002, Blair
advocated inspection first. He wrote that "the inspectors must be allowed
back in and to do their job properly; and that if he [Saddam] refuses, or if
he makes it impossible for them to do their job as he has done in the past,
the international community will have to act."
Had Mr Blair talked the president into a period of UN action while the
military - not yet ready for invasion - increased the pressure?

October 4
We were invited to the State Department in Washington. Quite an array of US
luminaries attended the primary meeting the Colin Powell [the secretary
of state], Condoleezza Rice [the national security adviser] and Paul
Wolfowitz [the deputy defence secretary], plus people in uniform like
General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and people
from the National Security Council and the office of the vice-president ...
The following discussion was brisk, with Ms Rice and Mr Wolfowitz taking
fairly tough lines. The latter asked me if I did not believe that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction. I replied that I had read the recent paper
which the British government had published - the one that claimed Iraq could
deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. I thought it was a good
paper but was struck that all the way through it stated that "intelligence
suggests" or "intelligence tells". This was not evidence.

November 19
[In Baghdad] I announced that the first inspection team would arrive around
November 25 ... On the way back to New York we stopped over in London, where
I was invited to see Blair. He was kind but did not seem to expect that Iraq
would in the end declare very much. It would fall to the inspectors to
search, he feared, and there was a risk that the Iraqis would fall back into
their old cat-and-mouse game.

2003
January 17
Mohamed ElBaradei [head of the International Atomic Energy Agency] and I
went to the Elysée Palace to see President Chirac. I said the situation was
tense. Iraq's cooperation - prompt access, etc - had regard more to process
than to substance. So far there had been little genuine effort by Iraq to
solve outstanding disarmament issues. A number of intelligence services,
including the French, were convinced that weapons of mass destruction
remained in Iraq, but we had no evidence showing it. More time was needed to
bring clarity on a number of issues.
Chirac said France did not have any "serious evidence" that Iraq retained
proscribed weapons. Having met people from French intelligence and listened
to them, I registered with keen interest that Chirac did not share their
conclusions on Iraq. The intelligence services sometimes "intoxicate each
other", he said. War was now the worst solution. It would fuel anti-western
feelings in the Muslim world ... Chirac said that Saddam Hussein was "locked
up in an intellectual bunker". His entourage did not dare to tell him the
truth.
When we arrived at Heathrow, British intelligence personnel briefed us
during the ride to Chequers. There, Blair greeted us cheerfully. The prime
minister said he thought the issue of private interviews with Iraqis was
important. I wondered if he genuinely thought this was an important and
realistic way of getting information, or whether he - and the US - thought
this was a case in which the Iraqi regime might balk and might be pinned to
a violation of the resolution, a material breach?
Blair noted that he was concerned about an "elongated timeline". If there
was no specific incident and if the findings of the inspectors were of a
"lower order," there would be a dilemma. The military pressure was important
to get Iraq to cooperate - a concept with which I agreed - but the US could
not keep troops idling in the area for months. Iraq had a duty to cooperate
actively, and to reveal. A period of Iraqi reluctance could not be tolerated
.... If there were to be a continued lack of "honest cooperation", serious
decisions might have to be taken around March 1.
I was not sure whether this reflected a US/UK understanding or if the prime
minister thought that my awareness of this thinking would lead me to present
a sufficiently ominous picture to my counterparts in Baghdad a few days
later - a picture that might move the regime into more active cooperation.
It further struck me from comments he made that his awareness of the
horribly brutal, evil nature of the Baghdad regime weighed heavily in his
thinking.
Perhaps Blair and Bush, both religious men, felt strengthened in their
political determination by the feeling they were fighting evil, not only
proliferation.
In the absence of finding weapons of mass destruction in occupied Iraq, the
two leaders have [since] not surprisingly focused on the terror argument,
about which they may have felt strongly but did not much rely on before the
armed action.
In responding to Tony Blair, I did not reference the terror nature of
Saddam's regime but said simply that the risk of a long period of "insincere
cooperation" by Iraq could not be excluded. If, on the other hand, Iraq
extended full and active cooperation, progress could be made in a matter of
months.
Blair took me and Torkel Stiernlof, my personal assistant, on a tour of some
of the rooms of the mansion. He showed us a Rubens painting which Churchill
had tried to improve with some brushstrokes, a fact that was discovered only
when it was sent for restoration. It was a warm and focused meeting.

February 5
In our meetings with Tony Blair and Jack Straw, I could not detect any trace
of the critical tone about our trip to Baghdad that had come out of the
recent Bush-Blair meeting in Washington. We were all aware of the need for
Iraq urgently to do more to present any remaining weapons and/or provide
evidence accounting for them. It was too late in the day for the Iraqis to
practise brinkmanship and bazaar bargaining. I thought one reason why Blair
had invited us to stop for a few hours might have been to strengthen our
hand in Baghdad by showing that we had political support for our mission, as
well as to convey to the English public some sense of restraint before
committing to a military solution. At the luncheon that followed with
Foreign Office and intelligence people, we learned that the British were
drafting a resolution that would demand action by Iraq before a specific
date.

February 20
Using the secure telephone line in Ambassador [Sir Jeremy] Greenstock's
office, I had a long conversation with Blair about his initiative. The prime
minister said that the Americans had been disappointed with my February 14
report. It had undermined their faith in the UN process. Well, yes, I
thought, their faith that the UN process would lead to the authorisation of
the military route might have been undermined.
The Americans, he said, were attracted by a second security council
resolution, up to a point, but did not feel they needed one. There was a
risk of the UN being marginalised and the international community split. He
wanted to offer the Americans an alternative strategy, a type of ultimatum
that would include a deadline for attaining the resolution of some
disarmament issues and impose a duty on Saddam to cooperate actively.
Failure to do so would constitute a breach of the November resolution.
The conversation suggested to me that Blair was positive both to the
position that a clear change of heart was the only way Saddam could avoid
armed action and to the idea that benchmarks could be set which would show
that change of heart. He said we needed to define cooperation, perhaps by
listing categories by which it could be assessed. The Americans were talking
of taking action by the end of the month.
I said I was attracted by the concept of a timeline - an ultimatum. Indeed,
I had included it in the papers I had given to the UK ambassador. Full
cooperation, I told Blair, could be defined - or as he had just put it,
listed by categories. I mentioned, as examples of issues that had already
been resolved, interviews outside Iraq, non-interference with surveillance
flights by U-2 and other planes, and destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles. I
further mentioned that Unmovic [the UN Monitoring Verifying and Inspection
Commission] would by the following week have a catalogue of actions required
of Iraq - the cluster document. I also said that the Iraqis had become much
more active. I was receiving a "flow of half promises". Maybe the Iraqis
were starting to panic. I said I needed more time. Condoleezza Rice had
assured me that weather was not a factor in the American planning. I said
there should be some room for compromise in the American position; they were
going ahead too fast.
Blair said the Iraqis could have sig nalled a change of heart in the
December 8 declaration, but had not done so. The US did not think Saddam
would cooperate. Nor did Blair. But, he said, we needed to keep the
international community together.
I said that I had asked Colin Powell about setting a deadline of April 15
and that he had responded this was too late. I thought it really too early.
Blair said he would pursue the ultimatum/deadline route and try to get me as
much time as possible. It should be possible to assess whether Saddam was
cooperating.
Part of my conversation with Blair touched on the role and quality of
intelligence. I said - as I had to Condoleezza Rice - that while I
appreciated the intelligence we received, I had to note that it had not been
all that compelling.
Personally, I tended to think that Iraq still concealed weapons of mass
destruction, but I needed evidence. Perhaps there were not many such weapons
in Iraq after all. Blair said that even the French and German intelligence
services were sure there were such weapons; the Egyptians too.
I said they seemed unsure, for instance, about mobile biological weapon
production facilities. I added that it would prove paradoxical and absurd if
250,000 troops were to invade Iraq and find very little.
Blair responded that the intelligence was clear that Saddam had
reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction programme. Blair clearly
relied on the intelligence and was convinced.

March 10
At 8am I had a call from a member of the British mission. He apologised for
disturbing me at such an undiplomatic hour and asked if I could come to his
mission in half an hour to take a call from his prime minister.
Blair said they needed five or six items on which the Iraqis could
demonstrate their compliance with Unmovic's work programme. Along with the
declaration by Saddam, items the Brits had been considering included
accounting for anthrax, the chemical agents VX and mustard, Scud missiles
and remotely piloted vehicles; and promising genuine cooperation with
Unmovic's plan to take scientists (along with their families) for interviews
outside Iraq. The process could not go on until April/May but perhaps it
could extend a few days beyond March 17. I sensed he found it hard to
persuade the US to go along.
The final list of benchmarks on which the British settled included the items
Blair had mentioned, with the modification that instead of accounting for
mustard gas, Iraq was to account for and surrender mobile facilities for
production of chemical and biological agents. We had looked long and in vain
for these facilities, which western intelligence agencies were very sure
existed.

March 13
In informal council consultations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock tried to win
support for the British benchmark paper. If he got "traction" on it, he
could be flexible on a number of points, even altogether dropping the whole
draft resolution, which looked like an ultimatum.

March 14
All efforts to reach an agreement in the council had collapsed. The draft
prepared by Chile and five other elected members was withdrawn, the European
Union ambassadors met without any convergence, and a meeting of the five
permanent members was cancelled. There was no traction except under the
tanks in Kuwait.

March 16
As we were sitting in my office, the telephone rang. It was [the US]
assistant secretary of state, John Wolf, in Washington, calling to advise me
that it was time to withdraw our inspectors from Iraq. No further notice
would be issued.

----
Main players

Sir Jeremy Greenstock
Career diplomat. At the time, Britain's ambassador to the UN in New York,
and at the heart of UK attempts to broker a UN resolution to legitimise the
invasion of Iraq. Now Britain's senior envoy in Baghdad

John Stern Wolf
Career diplomat. At the time, US assistant secretary of state for
non-proliferation, and a deputy to Colin Powell. Now US peace envoy in
Palestine

John Negroponte
US ambassador to the UN in New York

Paul Wolfowitz
Arch-hawk in Bush administration. Deputy defence secretary and a vociferous
enthusiast for "regime change" in Iraq

Condoleezza Rice
US national security adviser. Blix liked her: "She relied on her rational
arguments and not on the authority of her position. She is an intellectual"

Mohamed ElBaradei
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, responsible
for the hunt for Saddam's nuclear weapons.

The Guardian newspaper, London - 06 March 2004



GREENPEACE.ORG.UK STATEMENT ON IRAQ WHISTLE-BLOWER CASE:

Government faces further headache over legal case for Iraq war
Last edited: 28-02-2004

Whistle-blower case has 'huge implications' for Greenpeace protesters

Tony Blair faces further embarrassment in less than a fortnight, when
fourteen Greenpeace volunteers appear in court on charges relating to an
anti-war protest. Their case has taken on great significance since the
Crown
Prosection Service (CPS) claimed the case against Katherine Gun was
dropped
because they could not "disprove the defence of necessity" -- that is to
say, they could not counter the defence that her actions were justified to
save lives.

The so-called Marchwood Fourteen occupied tanks at the Southampton
military
port in February last year. Throughout their case the defendants - all
Greenpeace volunteers - have argued that their actions were necessary to
prevent loss of life. With the CPS now saying they could not have
disproved
such a defence in the Gun case, Greenpeace lawyers wonder how the CPS will
proceed against the fourteen.

In a further development Greenpeace has today written to the CPS asking it
for the Attorney-General's full advice to government on the legality of
the
war. Lawyers for the group claim access to the full advice is vital if the
defendants are to be allowed a proper defence. Greenpeace has given the
CPS
24 hours to produce the full advice, otherwise the group will renew its
request for the advice in court on the first day of the trial, set for
March
9th.

Greenpeace legal adviser Kate Harrison said, "The protesters thought the
war
was illegal. We think it is essential for a fair trial that they see the
full Attorney General's legal advice and the basis on which it was made."

"Since the Katharine Gun trial it would appear that the Attorney General
probably thought at the time of the protest that the war would be unlawful
and that the Foreign Office and other advisors thought so too."

The case against the fourteen will be held at Southampton Magistrate's
court
from March 9th.

Further information
Greenpeace opposed the war in Iraq and campaigned actively to prevent it.
We
joined the Stop the War coalition and made submissions to the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee on the illegality of the war, see
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk...0219to0222.pdf

For more information contact the Greenpeace press office
on 020 7865 8255 or 07801 212967 or 07801 212968
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multime...eport/6206.pdf