Straw insists ‘Saddam had weapons’
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has strongly refuted allegations that the threat posed by Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction was misrepresented or exaggerated by the Government.
Speaking on BBC One’s ‘Breakfast with Frost’, Mr Straw insisted that “we most certainly will find them; the intelligence is not wrong, the evidence is there and it is published that they had these weapons systems and had been building them up”.
He was adamant that the decision to take military action had not been based on “some contingency of what we might find later on” but on the basis of “fully declared and disclosed evidence”.
“Saddam unquestionably had these weapon systems but he asserted a lie to the international community that he didn’t have them and I believe that in the run-up to military action, that he hid a lot of the stuff,” he said.
And he added that: “The Iraqi regime was in clear defiance of the UN Security Council resolutions and putting that together, Iraq posed a threat to international security.”
Mr. Straw’s remarks follow accusations made this morning by former International Defence Secretary, Clare Short, that the Prime Minister had “duped us all” and indulged in “political spin” to “create a sense of urgency” about the war.
Former Cabinet Minister, Robin Cook, is demanding a full, independent enquiry into the whole Iraq affair and former Foreign Office minister, Doug Henderson, has called on the Prime Minister to make a statement in the Commons next week to clarify the situation.
