04.06.2003

WMD: Competition time

If you can't hide the truth, complicate it: a standard spin-doctor's approach

Perhaps Blair hopes the sheer amount and absurdity of government misinformation will throw us off the track. So, here is the Weekly Worker’s handy summary of what we learnt during Blair’s longest couple of weeks in politics. See if you can spot the statement least likely to be true …

1. Weapons of mass destruction were merely an easily agreed pretext for a war planned since 2001.
   Source: US deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz
2. The British dossier on WMD was politically doctored to present a stronger case than the intelligence services thought true.
   Source: ‘senior British official’, talking to the BBC
3. Colin Powell was not confident of the case he presented to the United Nations security council, and feared it might ‘explode in their faces’ later.
   Source: secretary of state Colin Powell
4. The assumption of government by the US and UK forces and their attempt to establish a new government in Iraq is against international law: and in the absence of WMDs, the war was too.
   Source: attorney general, Lord Goldsmith
5. The Iraqis may have destroyed all the WMDs before the war anyway.
   Source: US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld
6. The Republican Guard did not have chemical weapons the US forces were told they would have.
   Source: lieutenant-general James Conway
7. The British cabinet was misled and manipulated to support the war.
   Source: former international development secretary Clare Short
8. There is evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but it’s secret.
   Source: prime minister Tony Blair

Answer: If you had to look, you weren’t paying attention.