Thursday, July 15, 2004
Butler probe makes Blair's eyes water

The inquiry into the veracity of the intelligence used to justify sending UK troops to war in Iraq delivered its verdict on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack, with all the hallmarks of a probing government inquiry, Lord Butler concluded that the Government was guilty of 'Institutional Fibbing'. Characterised by no individual person telling an outright lie, but pervading the whole issue of whether there was or was not WMD in Iraq was a regime of collective dissonance and hiding from the truth.

"This was a case of one small porkie being told on top of one another." Explained Butler. "A bit like Chinese whispers."

"After information had passed through several hands, it bore no resemblance to the original truth."

"What started out as a shopping list scrawled in Arabic on the back of a fag packet in downtown Dauchanbe, ended up being interpreted as the sale of nuclear material in Niger and presented at the UN Security Council as a smoking gun." Said Lord Butler.

"But I found no evidence of Government Ministers telling outright lies and so their integrity is not questioned." Butler continued.

"In the preparation of the September dossier, a few phrases were edited out. Such phrases as 'maybe', 'potentially', 'uncertain', 'single source who was a known alcoholic' were deleted to make the paper more exciting."

"Readers would have got bored and not read it otherwise." Butler concluded.

Other key recommendations of the inquiry include:

• Government Officials should tell the truth to their Ministers, even if it damages their egos and/or their career opportunities


• Government Ministers should listen to the advice of civil servants without prejudice


• Government Ministers should tell the truth in Parliament


• Government Ministers should tell the truth on the radio


• Government Ministers should tell the truth under oath in Court


• Government Ministers should tell the truth to their electors

This is the second UK inquiry that seeks to shed light on how Britain ended up going to war in Iraq over weapons of mass destruction and 16 months after the ending of hostilities.

However, all that has been found by inspectors given a free rein so far is half a bottle of out of date Nytol and two Hasbro Junior Chemistry Sets (featuring a free 'Grow your own Crystals' giftset).

Lord Hutton's Inquiry into the death of UN weapons Inspector, Dr David Kelly, cleared Tony Blair of having sex up the dossier with his closest allies in Downing Street.

But despite a damning report from Butler, Blair said he felt the same about Iraq as he had before the war.

"With the history of Saddam and what he did, not just to his own country but to the wider world, we are better, safer, more secure without him in office," said Mr Blair.

"With that bottle of Nytol, Saddam could well have brought, not just the region, but the entire world, into turmoil."

Asked whether he thought some cough medicine added up to a case for war, Blair replied that although this is all that months of intensive searching and scientific testing has found, Iraq posed a clear and present danger before the invasion.

"The intelligence was clear: (Saddam) continued to believe his WMD programme was essential both for internal repression and for external aggression."

"The biological agents we believed Iraq could produce include anthrax, botulinum, Carling Black Label and Marmite." - Tony Blair

"The biological agents we believed Iraq could produce include anthrax, botulinum, Carling Black Label and Marmite. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death." Said Prime Minister Blair.

"Saddam was definitely hiding weapons of mass destruction. I know he was. I saw the evidence. I saw the evidence. He was lying. And laughing at us. We had to go in and get him. We did. We did. We did." Blair added, before being dragged off by men in white coats and pumped full of Prosac.

At a parallel Senate Inquiry in the US, Secretary of State, Colin Powell, gave evidence that supported critics claims that evidence of WMD was scant.

"I had the UN eating out of my hand." Said Powell.

"With any presentation, if the points you are making are weak or spurious, a kick-ass PowerPoint show is all you need to convince people you know what you're taling about."

"Especially when somebody back at the office knows haw to add graphics and sound." He added.

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