EVIAN, 2 June 2003 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair was forced yesterday to angrily deny his government had exaggerated the threat from Iraq’s illegal weapons, as a spiraling row threatened to engulf him at the Group of Eight summit. Already reeling from days of reports suggesting British and US intelligence officials were pressured into embellishing evidence on weapons stocks to justify the war on Iraq, Blair faced fresh problems as he arrived in France.
Former Development Minister Clare Short accused the prime minister in a newspaper interview of having “misled” people by making the weapons crisis seem unnecessarily urgent ahead of the US-led war.
Officials in London dismissed the comments by Short, who stepped down following the conflict, but as he flew in from Russia an exasperated and increasingly annoyed Blair faced a barrage of questions on the issue.
“Any suggestion that we somehow manufactured the intelligence is completely and totally false,” he snapped at reporters traveling with him from Saint Petersburg.
Blair said that the only reason no biological or chemical weapons had been found in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted was a sheer lack of time, giving his personal guarantee that some would come to light.
“I simply ask people: Make your judgement when you see the evidence, don’t make your judgement before you see the evidence,” said Blair. “I have always said to people: Let’s do this in a deliberate and considered way. It isn’t the priority immediately for the people in Iraq.”
Asked whether he thought the allegations were being propagated by opponents of the war who wanted to discredit it retrospectively, the premier was blunt. “That’s a pretty obvious judgement, isn’t it?” he said.
