From memory, I'm not sure it was presented in a definitive manner, in that I don't think it was claimed he did have them, as in it was not in doubt. I do think that out of date or unreliable intelligence was presented as 'PR' for justification. I think this was the biggest mistake from a PR perspective. They didn't need to present Iraq as a present threat. The justification for the war was the non-compliance with the cease-fire arrangements from the first Gulf War AND the context of a new middle-eastern threat to Western nation's national security. Not sure why they felt the need to dress up the justification any more than that, but they did. The intelligence should have remained classified, it was unreliable, in that it was based on 1990's Iraqi military capability and then a lot of guess work based on worst-case scenarios of military advancement. The actual situation we found when we went into Iraq was that Iraqi military capability had actually regressed since the first Gulf War.
Anyway, I still don't buy that presentation of what your intelligence agencies are telling you is a lie. I believe that the UK government at the time (i.e. Blair) acted in good faith based on the intelligence presented. I believe he believed in the intelligence, or at least that the threat assessment needed addressing. He will have known that the intelligence would have been classified as potentially unreliable (that is if they were using the national intelligence model). No intelligence is 100%, even reliable intelligence. Intelligence does not equal evidence.
I go back to my people-trafficking raid scenario by way of comparison. You are now aware that terrorist organisations that you have not been monitoring and have no idea of their sphere of influence, that are based in the region are actively and successfully targeting Western civilian targets. You also know that you have a regime within that area that had an intention to develop WMD's and long-range delivery capability. You also know that for a number of years, they've been refusing access to UN weapon's inspectors, therefore ANYTHING could be going on in Iraq in terms of the existence or non-existence of WMD and delivery capability. So what do you do about it?
My view is that even if the Saddam regime had these weapons or were developing them, the chance of extremists successfully operating in Iraq under his regime's noses to any extent was low, and the chances of any existing falling into their hands was probably low also. If I was Blair, i'd have told the Americans that we need to increase our intelligence in the middle east and initiate covert operations by security services in order to pin-point and nail down the threat and re-assess after a year or two.
Bad call to go balls-deep for regime-change straight away. It was undoubtedly a bad call by Blair. But was he a warmonger itching for invasion and willing to lie and deceive to get there? I really don't think so.
Sorry mate, legality does not rest with what the war was called. You're talking about moral obligations of government in justifying their actions to the people they serve again. Information is always manipulated. But it was manipulated by both sides of the argument.
For example, it has become accepted public opinion that the war on Iraq was illegal and based on lies by government. I find this quite interesting as this was largely an opinion created by mainstream British press. The BBC in particular seemed to completely disregard their stated impartiality when it came to discussing the war on Iraq. Countless people were wheeled out to state that the war on Iraq was illegal. But these people vary rarely had any legal training. I'm talking people like George Galloway and celebrities such as Esther Ranson and Bono! Unbelievable.
There was a determined effort by some mainstream media outlets to undermine public support for the Iraq war at every opportunity. Interestingly, the only people that were PROVEN to have outright lied about what was going on in Iraq was the Daily Mirror, who FABRICATED a story about British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners of war, using fake photographs. I don't know if you remember, but Piers Morgan was forced to resign as editor based on this VERY story and his decision to allow it to be run without giving it proper scrutiny.
Yet it is still accepted that our government lied to us, and that the anti-war media were merely holding them to account with genuine and above-board motivations and practices.
Again, i'd point out I was against the Iraq war, but not for reasons of legality, but for reasons of the consequences for the region's stability by removing a dictator like Saddam without a plan of action for the aftermath.
All i'd say is that those that put forward the argument of illegality and deception in the British press, were the only ones PROVEN to have deceived anyone! So do your own research on an issue, and make your own mind up! That's the moral for me.
