The Guardian: WMD claims were ‘totally implausible’
A key Foreign Office diplomat responsible for liaising with UN inspectors says today that claims the government made about Iraq’s weapons programme were “totally implausible”.
He tells the Guardian: “I’d read the intelligence on WMD for four and a half years, and there’s no way that it could sustain the case that the government was presenting. All of my colleagues knew that, too”.
Carne Ross, who was a member of the British mission to the UN in New York during the run-up to the invasion, resigned from the FO last year, after giving evidence to the Butler inquiry.
Posted on June 20th, 2005 at 9:35 am
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If I’m not mistaken, that takes the total of people who have said the same thing up to: everyone except the UK & US governments.
With the number of people of ex-FCO people popping up to voice their anti-war sentiment, it makes you wonder if anybody but dissidents have been running the Foreign Office for the last five years.
Of course, most career FCO types believe very strongly in the “empirical objective” civil servant model, and Blair et al use this very effectively to get exactly what they want.
“What? You won’t give us the information we want? That sounds like opposing us, hence you are no longer the impartial civil servant you claim to be, because you oppose us. Cooperating isn’t the same as endorsing, no sirree, it’s just doing your job. ”
It’s only later that they realise that once one side breaks the rules, even if you stick to them yourself, the whole game is queered.
Robert Bolt’s play “a man for all seasons” muses somewhat on the role silence plays in guilt. I recommend it.