A British investigation has found flaws in London’s pre-war assessment of Iraqi’s weapons threat, but the report has cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair of deceiving the nation into going to var. The investigation, led by former British civil service chief Robin Butler, concludes that British
intelligence officers were wrong to say that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes.
That finding was a key element in a British government document issued in September 2002 that helped persuade the public and parliament that Iraq must be disarmed.
Mr. Butler told reporters Iraq had no deployable(可使用的)chemical or biological weapons at the time of the March 2003 invasion.
"We say it would be an unwise person who reaches the conclusion that nothing will ever be found in Iraq. But I do distinguish between stocks of agent, and weapons," he said. "And we do conclude that Iraq did not have significant, if any, stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment."
The Butler report clears Prime Minister Blair of knowingly manipulating poor intelligence to win support for the invasion. Mr. Butler says no one in particular is responsible for the intelligence failures. "I think no single individual is to blame. This was a collective operation, in which there were the failures we’ve identified, "he said. "But as I’ve said, no, in my view, there was no deliberate attempt on the part of the government to mislead."
Mr. Blair appeared in parliament shortly after the report’s release. He accepted responsibility for the intelligence mistakes, but said Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed a threat that could not be ignored after the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.
"I can honestly say I never have had to make a harder judgment. But in the end, my judgment was that after September 11th, we could no longer run the risk. That instead of waiting for the potential threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to come together, we had to get out and get after it," he said.
Mr. Blair brushed off suggestions from the opposition Conservative Party that his credibility has been damaged by Iraq, and that parliament would be less likely to trust him if asked again to vote to go to war. Mr. Blair pointed out that the Conservatives also had supported the invasion of Iraq, and continue to do so.
The Butler commission was less critical of pre-war intelligence failures than a U.S. Senate report issued last week. Some leading senators have said President Bush probably would not have gotten the Senate’s support to invade Iraq if the poor intelligence assessments had been known at the time.