NYT: British Opponents of Iraq War Look to U.S. Report as Evidence

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/international/europe/10EURO.html

July 10, 2004

British Opponents of Iraq War Look to U.S. Report as Evidence

By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, July 9 -- Opponents of the pro-American stance of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, whose support for the war against Iraq has made him increasingly unpopular, seized on the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Friday as further evidence that Britain had entered the war on false premises.

"From the point of view of the public, it is yet another indication that the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein -- the case that only military action would do against him -- is being further and further undermined," Sir Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Party, told BBC radio.

Mr. Blair said earlier this week that the unconventional weapons cited as a reason for attacking Mr. Hussein might never be found, although he said, "We know that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction."

Because of the closeness of Britain and the United States in the push for war last year, any criticism of American intelligence in making the case for war is taken here as a criticism of British intelligence. The Senate report bluntly makes that connection, too, concluding that America and its allies were guilty of "global intelligence failures."

It is too early to judge the effect of the Senate report on Mr. Blair's political standing, which is already greatly weakened by months of questions about the war. Downing Street said Friday that it had no comment.

But the prime minister is no doubt looking nervously ahead to the release next Wednesday of the results of a parallel inquiry into Britain's own intelligence operations.

The forthcoming report, known as the Butler report because the panel producing it is chaired by Lord Butler, a former secretary of the cabinet, is expected to be highly critical of the way the British intelligence services compiled, analyzed and presented intelligence leading up to the Iraq war.

In the radio interview, Sir Menzies expressed frustration at the prospect that the Butler report does not look at the political use of intelligence information, but merely at how the intelligence was gathered. Britain, he said, might never get to the bottom of how the government may have pressured the intelligence services.

"It may be that we will never get a definitive view here in the United Kingdom about the extent to which the judgment and actions of politicians may have contributed to what everyone now accepts is going to war on a false prospectus," he said.