Channel NewsAsia June 03, 2003
US, Britain face mounting allegations of deliberate overplaying of Iraqi threat
The United States and Britain face mounting allegations that they deliberately overplayed the Iraqi threat to justify going to war.
Some even say the coalition manipulated intelligence analysis.
The international chorus of criticism is being fuelled by the failure of American forces to find any of the weapons of mass destruction which were cited as the primary reason for the invasion.
Much of the fire is coming from abroad but the controversy is also now gaining ground in the US itself.
Almost two months after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad, there is still no sign of any Iraqi chemical or biological weapons.
Patrick Garrett, Senior Fellow, GlobalSecurity.org, said: "The credibility of the administration really is at stake at this point."
At stake, because Washington's detailed pre-war case against Iraq left no room for doubt.
On February 5 for instance, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "We know Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
But fears that Iraq would use those weapons in the war proved unfounded and no stockpiles have turned up since.
Even strong supporters of the military action are somewhat surprised.
Gary Schmitt, Executive Director, Project for the New American Century, said: "10 years of practising how to hide things is going to mean that things are pretty well hidden. That said, I think people did expect to find some caches of weapons stocks that they haven't found yet."
So far, the best evidence the US has produced are special trucks said to have been mobile biological weapons labs of the sort outlined by Colin Powell at the UN.
The longer the search goes on though, the more sceptical analysts become.
Mr Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org said: "Ideas or arguments that the Bush administration really kind of cooked the books on this one, to create the evidence necessary to justify their political intentions or military strategies, really I think that those arguments are to some extent justified."
The prime backers of the war now find themselves on the defensive.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "The idea that we doctored such intelligence is completely and totally false. Every single piece of intelligence that we presented was cleared very properly by the Joint Intelligence Committee."
But there is even criticism coming from inside the intelligence community itself.
Some serving and recently retired American officials accuse the Bush administration of distorting the evidence.
As the controversy builds, the Bush administration's position seems to be shifting.
Senior officials now say that Iraq may have destroyed its stockpiles and planned to rely instead on carefully hidden production facilities that could be started up when the need arose.
Copyright © 2003, Media Corporation of Singapore Pte Ltd.
