• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

UK Muslims urge Blair to tell truth for going to war against Iraq

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 3, IRNA -- British Muslims Tuesday called on Prime 
Minister Tony Blair to tell the `whole truth` on why he joined US 
President George W Bush in going to war against Iraq. 
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) criticized the latest inquiry 
into Iraq`s elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction being limited to the 
quality of intelligence received saying it `must also investigate the 
reasons why our government took us to war against Iraq`. 
"In light of what we have learned over the past few months, many 
in Britain are now convinced that the Blair government had already 
made the fateful decision to go to war against Iraq alongside the 
United States," MCB secretary general Iqbal Sacranie said. 
The decision, he said, was regardless of the outcome of 
deliberations at the United Nations or the findings uncovered by the 
UN Weapons Inspection Team. 
Sacranie said that a specific objective of the inquiry must be to 
establish when the decision was made to launch the pre-emptive war and
if it was prior to the availability of specific intelligence. 
"If the answer is yes, then the intelligence services are not 
alone responsible and others need also to be brought to book," he 
said. 
As long ago as last May, Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defense 
secretary had admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair, that it was 
for `bureaucratic reasons` alone that the issue of WMD had been chosen
to focus on in the run up to war against Iraq. 
On March 17, 2003, in his resignation speech on the eve of war 
against Iraq, the former British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, 
further highlighted the belief that `Iraq probably has no weapons of 
mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term`. 
"In order for our country to move forward past this unsavory 
chapter in our foreign policy, it is important that we now be told 
the truth, the whole truth," Sacranie said. 
The Muslim Council of Britain is the UK`s representative Muslim 
umbrella body with over 400 affiliated national, regional and local 
organizations, mosques, charities and schools. 
HC/AH/210 
End