Black Box Recorder

Blair sticks to his guns over forged WMD "evidence"

There really must be something wrong with Blair these days. Blair refused to back down over the forged "evidence" in the British dossier claiming that Iraq had attempted to purchase urnaium from Niger.

Yesterday Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, urged Mr Blair to withdraw his claim in the Commons last September that Saddam was "actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability".
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Mr Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war, challenged Mr Blair in the Commons, asking whether he had been advised that the documents on which the claim was based were forged. He asked Mr Blair to correct the record now by saying that "he regrets in all good faith he gave the House information which has since turned out to be wrong".

Mr Blair refused to do so, insisting there was intelligence to back up the claim. He said: " I'm not going into the details of what particular intelligence it was. But there was intelligence judged by the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time to be correct." He said the Government was not in a position "to say whether that is so or not" until after the investigation to be carried out by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

Such persistence can only be admired. Perhaps one day schoolchildren everywhere will learn the motivational story of "The Little PM Who Could".

Meanwhile, back in the US:

The implication that Mr Bush may have deliberately misled Congress, and the world, in that speech was made in a private letter sent this week from Henry Waxman, a leading Democrat in the House of Representatives, to Mr Bush two days ago. The letter was seen yesterday by The Independent. He wrote: "I urge you to explain why you cited forged evidence about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear materials in your state of the union address.

"That a President could cite forged evidence in such an address - on a matter as momentous as impending war -should be unthinkable."
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Maybe the President was relying on Tony Blair to make a statement and therefore the President's statement was accurate.

Hahaha...that clever and logical Henry Waxman. "Maybe the president was relying on information he heard fourth-hand whose original source was the whino who used to live on my doorstep and therefore the President's statement was accurate". I would venture a guess that whatever answer Bush makes - if he even makes one at all - will revolve around "good intentions" and "honest mistakes".