A question of trust

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Trust me: Blair in Evian

Tony Blair flies home today to confront his army of critics over weapons of mass destruction. The controversy has opened on two fronts: the first being the lack so far of any convincing evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the second being the accusations that Downing Street doctored the conclusion of an intelligence dossier, thus enabling the Prime Minister to mislead the House of Commons about the urgency of the threat Saddam Hussein posed to Britain.

"Have a little patience," insists Mr Blair. It is indeed possible that evidence of an existing WMD programme will be uncovered in Iraq in due course. Yet the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has already admitted that WMDs may never be found. This has undercut the claim in the main intelligence dossier, prepared by MI6 last August, that Saddam was ready to unleash chemical, biological or nuclear attacks on Britain within 45 minutes - a warning which Mr Blair proceeded to emphasise in Parliament.

Now that Washington thinks Saddam's WMDs may have been dismantled before the Iraq war started, Downing Street must clarify whether the assessment made in the MI6 dossier was still deemed credible up to the eve of war. If it was based on a misreading of the command and control capability of the Iraqi military machine then Mr Blair ought to say so.

The Government should not behave as if these arguments are water under the bridge. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday poured scorn on those who belittled the victories of our armed forces by raising the WMD issue at all. Yet it was Mr Blair's insistence that Iraq had delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction ready for use at short notice which was used to convince a sceptical public to support US forces in invading Iraq. If it was of such importance then, it cannot be dismissed from memory now.

For that reason, it is incumbent on Mr Blair to give the fullest account at the earliest possible time of what the present inspectorate has uncovered. The allegation that the conclusion of one of the two intelligence dossiers compiled to bolster his case for going to war was withdrawn, days before being made public, after discussion with Alastair Campbell, is potentially devastating to Mr Blair's moral authority. The Prime Minister strongly denies this, although some notes made by the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee who advised Mr Blair on the dossier's content were not included in the final version. It would make Mr Blair's insistence that nothing of substance was removed from the dossier more credible if he were to publish these comments.

Like most of the British media, the Evening Standard agonised over the pros and cons of invading Iraq. We were persuaded to support the involvement of British forces not because of Saddam's repressive regime but because we trusted the Prime Minister's conclusions about the nature of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.

More than any other prime minister in recent times, Tony Blair relies upon his relationship of trust with the British people. He asks us to trust him on getting public services to work; he is currently asking us to trust him on not needing a referendum on the EU constitution, despite its potential consequences for British legislation. Up until now, the majority of his countrymen have acknowledged his trustworthiness. If he cannot successfully rebut the allegation that he duped his countrymen into going to war, his leadership will be dangerously compromised.

 

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