A Muck Sweat

‘WAS it just a coincidence that the air conditioning failed as Tony Blair was answering accusations that he fabricated evidence to strengthen the case for war against Iraq?

Is the writing on the wall for Tony?

Or could it be that his host and leader of the anti-war lobby, Jacques Chirac, had pulled the plug so he could watch his erstwhile friend sweat literally as well as metaphorically?

Certainly, the Prime Minister ”appeared uncomfortable in the extreme” – according to the Independent – as he issued his strongest denial yet that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein had been exaggerated.

And his frustration boiled over as he launched an unprecedented attack on Clare Short, whom he branded a liar, and rejected calls for an independent inquiry.

With a similar inquiry already under way in the US and one in the pipeline in Australia, the Guardian says Blair’s position is both wrong and foolish.

”The Blair government should not be out of step with its Iraq war allies,” it says, ”never mind out of step with its own supporters and backbenchers.”

Just how out of step it is with its own backbenchers is suggested by the comment from Malcolm Savidge, MP for Aberdeen North, who believes the issue ”is more serious than Watergate”.

Mr Blair has challenged his opponents to produce evidence of wrong-doing, just as they had challenged him to produce evidence of Saddam’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

But his position has been undermined, says the Telegraph, by the US Senate’s decision to hold joint hearings in public into the intelligence warnings.

Senator John Warner, Republican chairman of the armed services committee, explained: ”People are challenging the credibility of the use of this intelligence, and its use by the President, the secretaries of state and defence, the CIA director and others.”

If that seems a good enough reason to hold a full inquiry in the United States, why is it not a good enough reason over here?

Because Tony has given us his word that he hasn’t done anything wrong – and, as we said yesterday, that’s good enough for us…

‘

Posted: 3rd, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink