Blair's blunder
On the delicate matter of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or lack of them, opinions within the British government appear to be somewhat divided, writes Alistair Alexander from London
Britain's Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has a way of sticking to the same script. "It will inevitably take some time to locate that equipment [for producing weapons of mass destruction], but I am confident that we will do so," he said.
But in a BBC interview, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was less certain. Whether coalition forces will find any banned weapons "remains to be seen", Straw conceded. But finding such weapons was "not crucially important" anyway, as the evidence compiled by Hans Blix against Iraq before the war was "overwhelming". It takes a certain degree of brio to cite Blix as the British government's main justification for attacking Iraq. After all, it was Blix who recently complained, with characteristic understatement, about the "shaky" evidence against Iraq supplied by none other than the British government. The documents from Niger, for example, that detailed Saddam's efforts to buy uranium, were found to be crude forgeries.
And ministers still continually refer to the "10,000 litres of anthrax" that Saddam was alleged to have possessed. That evidence was supplied by Hussein Kamal, Saddam's brother-in- law-turned-defector, and was central to the coalition case. But Kamal's full testimony, leaked by US intelligence, reveals that he also said those stocks were destroyed long before weapons inspectors even knew of their existence.
In fact, every piece of evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has been found to be either unsubstantiated, discredited or fabricated.
But however glaring the inconsistencies in the British government's position on Iraq's WMD capabilities, the issue is unlikely to cause the British government much damage any time soon. For one thing, as Iraq's former chief scientist, Amir Al-Sadi, pointed out prior to the war, it is impossible "to prove a negative". Critics of the war will probably find it as hard to prove conclusively that there are no banned weapons as Iraq's former regime did.
So the British government will continue to claim Iraq did have banned weapons for as long as it can, which is probably indefinitely. More likely, the issue will drag on in the background, only to resurface when the British government faces concerted opposition on other matters.
As inspection operations are wound down after searching virtually all suspect sites in Iraq to no avail, the British government no doubt hopes attention will turn to the "liberation" of Iraq as justification enough for the war.
And in a week when mass graves of many thousands were unearthed, revealing the stomach-churning horror of Saddam's regime, Straw clearly felt it was churlish for the media to be obsessing over the technical details of whether or not Iraq had any banned weapons.
But the escalating chaos engulfing Iraq is hardly a cause for celebration, and might explain why plans for a victory parade have been quietly dropped. In the House of Commons, Straw was forced to admit that the situation in Iraq had not been "as good as we hoped".
Overseas Development Secretary Clare Short went one further by resigning from the Cabinet with a stinging attack on the proposed new resolution on Iraq currently under negotiation at the Security Council.
"The draft resolution risks continuing international divisions, Iraqi resentment against the occupying powers and the possibility the coalition will be bogged down in Iraq," she said. Short went on to question the legality of any resolution that did not give the UN a "central" role in rebuilding Iraq.
But Short's resignation merely served as a poignant reminder of how different things might have been if she had walked out before war began as she threatened, instead of a month after it had finished.
It was Short, of course, who brought the British government to the brink of collapse just days before military action by calling the British prime minister "reckless" for going to war in Iraq without a UN mandate and by promising her resignation if he did. If that was Blair's low point, then her subsequent u-turn to stay in the Cabinet was his turning point, and it proved decisive in winning him a Commons debate on Iraq against an unprecedented parliamentary rebellion.
Short's extraordinary change of heart earned her the derision of Blair loyalists and rebels alike and few doubted she would be swiftly removed once hostilities -- in Iraq and in the Commons -- had been concluded. Unsurprisingly, then, most MPs suspected she jumped before she was pushed.
While her charge that the proposed arrangements on Iraq lack legality carries some weight, the case is far less emphatic than that against the war in the first place. And any lingering sympathy for Short was eclipsed by the harsh fact that she was resigning over a situation she was uniquely placed to prevent, but instead, she played a pivotal role in bringing it about.
Short is not the only British government opponent who appears to be serving as a welcome distraction.
George Galloway is currently embroiled in a scandal that has effectively neutralised one of the British government's most trenchant critics in the House of Commons. Galloway has been a long-standing opponent of sanctions against Iraq, earning him the enduring contempt of the Labour leadership for many years. In March, allegations surfaced of "financial irregularities" in one of his political campaigns; but the reports appeared to be more smear than substance.
Shortly afterwards, however, Galloway caused outrage following an interview on Abu Dhabi TV in which he called Bush and Blair "wolves" and urged British soldiers to "disobey illegal orders".
The right-wing press promptly branded him a traitor and some Labour MPs even urged for him to be tried for treachery. Galloway's remarks were definitely inflammatory and, for an MP who revels in controversy, they were almost certainly designed to be. But, even so, the furore looked more like pantomime than treason.
Nevertheless the Labour Party felt compelled, after receiving "complaints from the public", to begin disciplinary proceedings.
The Galloway affair took a bizarre twist just days after the fall of Baghdad, however, when the Daily Telegraph reported on "official" documents it had obtained describing how the former Iraqi regime had been paying Galloway hundreds of thousands of dollars through the proceeds of oil sales from the UN oil-for-food programme.
The documents were apparently discovered in a room in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry that had miraculously escaped any damage, despite the rest of the building being comprehensively destroyed by fire and looting. Strange indeed, not least as the Daily Telegraph tends to be the paper of choice for any British intelligence officials wishing to leak information.
Galloway unsurprisingly denies that the documents are genuine and is suing for libel. But as legal proceedings get under way, Galloway is obliged to keep quiet so as not to prejudice the trial's outcome. The British government, however, has no such obligations and has wasted little time in suspending Galloway until it has finished its internal enquiry.
Whatever the outcome of any court case, Galloway's troubles could hardly come at a better time for the government. Not only has one of their strongest critics been silenced, but, with the number of Glasgow MPs being reduced at the next election, there will inevitably be an unseemly scramble for the remaining seats -- one that might favour MPs with strong grass-roots support, such as Galloway. But, of course, only the most cynical would note that for other Glasgow MPs like Blairite John Reid, Galloway's predicament will almost certainly make re-selection far more straightforward.
