[Gotta love those newspaper headlines in the last paragraph. That's
what we're missing in this country.]
http://www.msnbc.com/news/919535.asp#BODY
Comments fuel doubts over Iraq's weapons
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
May 30 -- As the Pentagon sent hundreds of new weapons hunters into
Iraq and said it was changing how they would search for Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, critics expressed shock at
published remarks by a senior U.S. official playing down those weapons
as the reason for the war in the first place.
<snip>
Critics of the war expressed shock at Wolfowitz's published
comments. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we
believe?" former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen told
The Associated Press.
In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the newspaper
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the comments showed that the
United States was losing the battle for credibility. "The charge of
deception is inescapable," it said Friday.
In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war,
said he, too, doubted that Iraq had any such weapons.
"The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a
pre-emptive strike, `Hit Saddam before he hits us,'" Cook told the
British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not
have anything with which to hit us in the first place."
<snip>
BLAIR UNDER FIRE
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, was fighting his
own battle against allegations that he fabricated evidence against
Saddam after the BBC reported that an intelligence dossier had been
altered at the request of his office to make it "sexier" by claiming
that Saddam's weapons could be readied for use within 45 minutes.
<snip>
Blair's opponents seized on the latest report to blast the
prime minister. "I believe the prime minister lied to us and lied to
us and lied to us," said Tony Benn, a left-wing member of the Labor
Party. "The whole war was built upon falsehood, and I think the
long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain."
In Britain, newspaper headlines like "Sex it Up!" and "Lies,
Lies, Lies" piled the pressure on the government to prove that it did
not mislead Parliament or the public.
Full:
Linkname: Comments fuel doubts over Iraq's weapons
URL: http://www.msnbc.com/news/919535.asp#BODY