A transatlantic vindication

[Barrett808]

Most of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's troubles with his own party stem from the fact that his foreign policy is pro-American and his domestic agenda is moderately conservative, both grievous sins to the left-wing fringe of the socialistic Labor Party that he leads. It should be cause for some rejoicing on this side of the Atlantic that America's staunchest ally has been vindicated of malicious allegations that he tricked his nation into war.

An independent inquiry was ordered by Mr. Blair himself to get to the bottom of a whirlpool of charges about his motives for joining President Bush in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Mr. Blair's enemies hoped that the inquiry would confirm their lurid conspiracy theories. Instead, the inquiry cleared Mr. Blair of the allegations made against him.

With evident satisfaction, the prime minister was able to tell Parliament yesterday that "the allegation that I or anybody else lied to the House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence of weapons of mass destruction is itself the real lie. I simply ask that those that have made it and repeated it over all these months now withdraw it fully, openly and clearly."

The BBC had reported that the government exaggerated intelligence reports to justify going to war in Iraq. The BBC's reporting, which the inquiry determined to be "unfounded," eventually led to a Ministry of Defense scientist who had been monitoring Iraq's weapons programs. The scientist, who was the source of the BBC report, subsequently committed suicide.

(more)

http://www.charleston.net/stories/012904/edi_29edit2.shtml

[Briar]

1. Huh?

"An independent inquiry was ordered by Mr. Blair himself to get to the bottom of a whirlpool of charges about his motives for joining President Bush in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

Such wild inaccuracy hardly leads one to have much faith in the writer. The enquiry was simply into the causes of Dr Kelly's suicide.

Thank goodness most Brits are both better informed and much less biased in their reaction to this sorry affair.

Polls taken all show that the BBC is still more trusted than Bliar and co, that most people think Hutton's conclusions were wrong, and that Greg Dyke should not have resigned!

But of course this is the kind of article Bliar hoped would be written overseas.