LONDON, 12 January 2004 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested yesterday that Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq.
“In a land mass twice the size of the UK it may well not be surprising you don’t find where this stuff is hidden”, Blair told BBC television.
The prime minister, US President George W. Bush’s staunchest ally in the war against Saddam, added: “You can’t be definitive at the moment about what has happened.”
Asked if he had been wrong in highlighting the threat of weapons of mass destruction, whose pursuit by Saddam was cited as a main justification for the war launched in March, Blair replied: “You can’t say that at this point in time.
“What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam’s programs and about his weapons, that we acted on that.
“But I don’t know is the answer.”
Blair again insisted the US-led Iraq Survey Group scouring Iraq had already uncovered evidence of secret weapons programs.
Paul Bremer, the US official charged with running Iraq, last month rejected Blair’s claim that the group had unearthed “massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories.”
However, Blair said yesterday: “What they have found already is a whole raft of evidence about clandestine operations that should have been disclosed to the United Nations, a network.
“You are entitled to ask,’What was the point of having all these elaborate concealment mechanisms if there was nothing to conceal?’”
Meanwhile, an opinion poll showed that 50 percent of British voters believe Blair lied over the outing of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defense expert on Iraqi weapons who killed himself last year.
The poll was released as Blair awaits publication of a report by senior judge Brian Hutton after he oversaw an inquiry late last year into Kelly’s death.
Blair told BBC Television yesterday that he would quit if it was proven that he lied over Kelly.
Half of Britons agreed with the statement that Blair lied in saying he did not authorize the leaking of Kelly’s name, according to the YouGov poll.
