Muddying The Water

‘JUDGING by the picture on the front page of the Times, it’s not only hotel guests who fill their suitcases with ”freebies”.

Saddam’s caber-tossing squad were ready to go at 45 minutes notice

President Bush sits in a garden in Jordan with the prime ministers of Israel and Palestine and a bottle of Evian on the table in front of him.

Is it a coincidence that this is the very same French spa town where he had attended the G8 conference earlier this week?

Possibly, but that doesn’t explain why Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas are drinking water from bottles with Arabic writing.

Nothing in the Middle East is simple and we can offer no answers – but closer to home we can tell you that Bush’s great chum, Tony Blair, is under fire for a lot more than raiding the hotel mini-bar.

Former deputy leader of the Labour Party, Lord Healey, tells the Independent that the Prime Minister should resign if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq.

He also called for a full judicial inquiry into claims that Downing Street encouraged the intelligence agencies to exaggerate Iraq’s readiness to launch a chemical or biological attack.

But the current deputy leader of the Labour Party, John Prescott, angrily backed Blair.

”This is about the integrity of the party,” he told loyalists. ”The Prime Minister does not lie.”

Unsurprisingly, it is the anti-war papers which are leading the attack on the Government, with the Independent the most voluble critic.

The Guardian is again impressed by Blair’s performance under fire, making Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith look ”out of his league” and berating his critics ”almost Thatcher-style”.

But it says that should not detract from bigger issues.

”If intelligence was perverted to make the case for an otherwise illegal war, then we need to know about it,” it says.

Yes – but who do we trust to tell us about it?

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Posted: 5th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink