Blair stands by WMD claims

2003-06-02 15:07

Evian, France - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday he stood behind claims that Iraq had illegal weapons ready for immediate use before the US-led war, rounding on critics who accused him of misleading the country on the issue.

"I stand absolutely, 100% behind the evidence, based on intelligence that we presented to people," a visibly angry Blair said when asked about pre-war British claims Iraq could fire chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes.

"Let me just make one or two things clear," he told a news conference at the Group of Eight's annual summit in the French lakeside resort town of Evian.

"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.

Blair, US President George W Bush's closest ally in the war, appealed for people to "have a little patience" while the search for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq continued.

"When we accumulate that evidence properly, we will give it to people," he said.

Blair is accused by a pair of ex-ministerial colleagues of having misled the nation about Iraq's weaponry, and faces calls from British MPs for an independent inquiry into the affair.

Anonymous sources

But Blair was brutal when asked about the charges laid by former foreign secretary Robin Cook and ex-development minister Clare Short, which followed a series of similar newspaper allegations.

"I think it is important that if people actually have evidence, they produce it," he said frostily.

"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 that we have stated."

He ridiculed the idea that Iraq might not have possessed useable weapons ahead of the war.

"The idea that Saddam Hussein has for 12 years been obstructing the UN weapons inspectors, has been engaged with this huge battle with the international community, when all the way along he had actually destroyed these weapons is completely absurd," he said.

Constant questioning about the issue has threatened to overshadow Blair's trip, which took him to Iraq, Kuwait, Poland and Russia before France.

US backing

His view was backed up on Monday by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who voiced equal certainty that Iraq was continuing to develop illegal weapons in the lead-up to the war.

"There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It wasn't a figment of anyone's imagination," he told a news conference in Rome.

"That Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, there was no doubt in my mind as I went through the intelligence... The evidence was overwhelming that they had continued to develop these programmes," he added.

- AFX