Both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have pledged themselves to find answers to questions about the intelligence that led to the Coalition attack on Iraq. The problem is that for many people what the two leaders want are answers to the wrong questions. Bush’s enquiry is charged with investigating intelligence not only related to Iraq but also to Iran, North Korea, Libya and Afghanistan. With such a broad responsibility, it will be extremely hard for this ostensibly independent commission to report before next March — by which time, so Bush supporters hope, their man will be safely back in the White House. In Britain, meanwhile, Blair has appointed a top civil servant to look into “the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between the intelligence...used by the government before the conflict, and... what has been discovered by the Iraq Survey Group since the end of the conflict. “
Both these enquiries are looking at matters which, while of importance, are not the main issue. The crucial question is whether or not both Bush and Blair used extremely limited evidence on the continued existence of Iraq’s WMD program to justify a war upon which George Bush had been set the minute he first sat down in the Oval Office. The suspicion is that he was determined to settle his father’s unfinished business with Saddam. The Sept. 11 attacks gave the younger Bush his opportunity. America went onto a war footing. With international support, it led the invasion of Afghanistan and the ouster of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda as the opening move in its war on terrorism. Washington then swung the spotlight to Iraq, even though no convincing evidence was ever produced to establish any links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.
With Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning, Washington and London claimed that because no WMD had been found by the UN Saddam was hiding them. Once the dictator had been toppled, US inspection teams were unable to uncover anything despite having complete control of Iraq. After nine months of comments by Washington and London that people should wait and see because the WMD would surely be found, the truth had to be faced. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
Embarrassed and compromised by the message they willfully exploited, both Bush and Blair have decided to go after the messengers. Any inquiry should certainly examine whether or not the US and British intelligence services made serious errors. Equally, however, the roles of the White House and Downing Street in perhaps encouraging the answers they wanted or stretching the intelligence beyond reason must not be omitted from examination. As it stands, the answers to both the US and UK enquiries will leave those big questions unaddressed and unanswered.
