Blair Admits WMD May Never Turn Up

Prime Minister's Question Time on Tuesday brought Tony Blair as close to surrendering to his opponents as he is likely to get before the next general election. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction may never turn up, he admitted. His exact words were "I was very, very confident we would find them. I have to accept that we have not found them and we may not find them. He may have removed or hidden or even destroyed those weapons. We don't know." He left out "I quit."

The Right Honourable Gentleman has had a tougher time at home than his friend George W. Bush. He has to answer questions from the House of Commons every week. Mr. Bush doesn't have to answer any questions from Congress and has scrupulously avoided the press as much as possible. Moreover, the British press is much more aggressive (to the point of recklessness on occasion) in questioning the government than the American press is. And above all, Britain was not directly attacked on September 11, so questioning the government cannot be perverted into a treasonous offense.

Unfortunately for Mr. Blair, his government went to war largely on the strength of the WMD threat. Freeing Iraq was a side issue, and the justification of the war on the grounds of violating US Security Council resolutions never really got off the ground. The 45-miniutes-to-chemical-attack argument carried the day. And now, the PM has said the casus belli can't, um, isn't, er, well, perhaps . . . .

Mr. Blair took the nation into war against the wishes of most of his people, and his search for the threat the attack was meant to deter has come up empty. Were his majority not so overwhelming, his government would have fallen this week. Were his majority not so overwhelming, though, he might not be in this fix in the first place. Huge majorities breed arrogance -- e.g., the second Thatcher government.

Mr. Blair weakly defended his position with, "It is very important not to go to the other extreme and say because we have not found stockpiles of WMD therefore he was not a threat." Correct, but then Britain should have had that debate and not focused on the WMD issue. For that matter, America should have done the same. As Mr. Clinton learned (or should have learned at any rate), it isn't the act, it's the lie that undermines the leader.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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