British Prime Minister Tony Blair, responding to a high-level inquiry into flawed intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons, admitted yesterday it was "increasingly unlikely" any such weapons would be found.
But in a statement to parliament, he declared: "No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services."
Blair was responding to the release of the "Butler Report," an inquiry that was released yesterday which found that Britain's pre-war intelligence on Iraq's armaments had "serious flaws," but Prime Minister Tony Blair was not personally responsible.
"No single individual was to blame. This was a collective operation," Lord Butler told reporters after releasing a report that also said Saddam Hussein had no significant banned weapons ready for use prior to the US-UK invasion.
His findings mirrored last week's Senate committee report that lambasted US intelligence services for exaggerating the threat from Iraq, but found no sign President George W. Bush had pressured analysts to reach pre-set conclusions.
Wednesday's long-awaited report by former top British civil servant Lord Butler concluded that Iraq "did not have significant -- if any -- stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment nor developed plans for using them."
The government's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) strove to put together a dossier on Iraq's weaponry in 2002 reflecting available intelligence but was under "strain" in a politically charged climate as they sought to be objective, it added.
Butler said in future there should be clearer lines dividing those assessing intelligence and those advocating policy.
But there was "no deliberate attempt on the part of the government to mislead," he added.
In the now notorious September 2002 dossier compiled by the JIC, Blair stated that Iraq could deploy some weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so.
No such weapons have been found more than a year after Saddam was overthrown.
"We conclude that it was a serious weakness that the JIC's warnings on the limitations of intelligence underlying its judgments were not made sufficiently clear in the dossier," said the report, five months in the making.
"Our view, having reviewed all of the material, is that judgments in the dossier went to [although not beyond] the outer limits of the intelligence available.
"The prime minister's description, in his statement to the House of Commons on the day of the publication of the dossier, as `extensive, detailed and authoritative' may have reinforced this impression."
The report said the 45 minutes claim should not have been included in the dossier without stating precisely what it referred to. The fact that it was, led to suspicions that it was there for "its eye-catching character."
But Butler apportioned no blame for the quality of the intelligence or how it was used in the government's case for war. He said John Scarlett, who headed the JIC and has now been promoted to run Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, should not be punished.
"We conclude that if intelligence is to be used more widely by governments in public debate in future, those doing so must be careful to explain its uses and limitations," the report said.
"It will be essential too that clearer and more effective dividing lines between assessment and advocacy are established when doing so."
Like his ally Bush, Blair has seen his popularity tumble over Iraq and now risks backlash at the polls.
Yet most analysts still see Blair leading the Labour Party into an election expected next year -- and winning it.
Analysts said the Butler report would be a relief to Blair despite its criticism of intelligence.
"I would think this is the best that the Prime Minister and the government could have hoped for. It looks to be as if he has been more or less left out of the circle of blame," John Benyon, politics professor at the University of Leicester, told reporters.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the