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| WMDs in Iraq: Bush and Blair on the defensive | |
| By JENNIFER LOVEN | |
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"If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering," Blair said last week in a historic address to the U. S. Congress. "That is something I am confident history will forgive." Bush sounded a similar note when the two appeared together minutes later in the majestic, marble-floored entrance hall of the White House. "Given Saddam’s history of violence and aggression, it would have been reckless to place our trust in his sanity or his restraint," Bush said. "As long as I hold this office, I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the goodwill of dangerous enemies." With the carefully orchestrated statements, the two allies hoped to put to rest days of tough questioning on both sides of the Atlantic about the intelligence information they used to justify toppling Saddam Hussein. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in more than three months since U. S. A. and British-led coalition ousted Saddam’s government. Recently, Bush has been under fire from Democrats for a claim in his January 28 State-of-the-Union address—based on British intelligence and key to the assertion that Saddam was reconstituting a nuclear weapons programme—that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. The White House now says concerns about the intelligence behind the statement should have kept it out of the speech. But the leaders, in lockstep, sought to refocus the debate away from the daily drip-drip of questions and on to their joint resolve in the face of danger from terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. "Saddam Hussein produced and possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons programme," Bush said. "We won’t be proven wrong," he added. "I believe that we will find the truth.... And that’ll end all this speculation." And while Blair had opened the door in his speech to the possibility that weapons of mass destruction may never be found, Bush did not do so as widely. "If our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership," Blair said to applause from hundreds of U. S. lawmakers. Bush was clearly pleased. He called Blair’s speech to Congress "fabulous," and congratulated his counterpart with a quiet "good job" as they ended their joint appearance before reporters. The two then met upstairs in the residence for about an hour before leaving the White House together. Bush went to Texas for a weekend of campaign fund-raising and a visit to his ranch by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, another ally in the Iraq war. Blair, the first British Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of Congress in the U. S. A. since Margaret Thatcher in 1985, entered the House chamber to thunderous applause that was repeated throughout his remarks. The warm welcome —"more than I deserve and more than I’m used to, quite frankly," Blair noted dryly—was in stark contrast to the heckling over the Iraq war he often receives in the British Parliament. It was a speech designed to resonate uniquely with Blair’s American audience. He joked about the British torching of the Library of Congress in 1814, saying: "I know this is kind of late but—sorry," and spoke spiritedly of the meaning of American freedom.Blair also paid a tribute to America’s superpower status, but with a gentle plea for the nation to work with others, not dictate to them. That effort, he said, should start with Europe—even though many of its major powers opposed the war. "To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the anti-Americanism that sometimes passes for its political discourse," Blair said. "America must listen as well as lead." Bush did not answer directly when asked whether he would take personal responsibility for his statement on Iraq’s uranium pursuits. He said only that he would take responsibility for making the decision to go to war and for "dealing with that threat." For his part, Blair forcefully defended his government’s reports. "We stand by that intelligence," he said. Bush called the remnant Saddam loyalists in Iraq, responsible for continuing deadly attacks on U. S. soldiers there.The two leaders also defended the progress of post-war efforts to rebuild Iraq, insisting it will take time to build democratic institutions and a functioning society. |
President
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair contend they won’t be
proved wrong in their pre-war claims about Iraq’s weapons
capabilities. Even if they are, says Blair, a menace has been
defeated.| Flash News |
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