But even this is not the whole story. The British and U.S. governments, with the near 100% complicity of the mainstream media, are basing their arguments for war on two key deceptions:
1) Iraq has large quantities of deadly weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which it is not prepared to disclose or surrender.
2) Iraq has had 12 years to disarm but has never done so - a further 120 days of weapons inspections (as proposed by the Franco-German initiative) are therefore pointless.
Desperate to stick to their early to mid-March timetable for war, the British and U.S. governments have declared the futility of further inspections. Tony Blair has dismissed the Franco-German plan for peaceful disarmament, saying it was "absurd" to think U.N. inspectors could find lethal weapons without Baghdad's full cooperation:
"The idea that inspectors could conceivably sniff out the weapons... without the help of Iraqi authorities is absurd," the prime minister told parliament. "They are not a detective agency and even if they were Iraq is a country with a land mass roughly the size of France." (Mike Peacock, "Britain's Blair Slams Franco-German Iraq Plan", Reuters, February 25, 2003)
In reality, Blair's key claims are flatly contradicted by the UNSCOM inspectors who sought to disarm Iraq between 1991-98.
1) Iraq has large quantities of deadly weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which it is not prepared to disclose or surrender.
2) Iraq has had 12 years to disarm but has never done so - a further 120 days of weapons inspections (as proposed by the Franco-German initiative) are therefore pointless.
Desperate to stick to their early to mid-March timetable for war, the British and U.S. governments have declared the futility of further inspections. Tony Blair has dismissed the Franco-German plan for peaceful disarmament, saying it was "absurd" to think U.N. inspectors could find lethal weapons without Baghdad's full cooperation:
"The idea that inspectors could conceivably sniff out the weapons... without the help of Iraqi authorities is absurd," the prime minister told parliament. "They are not a detective agency and even if they were Iraq is a country with a land mass roughly the size of France." (Mike Peacock, "Britain's Blair Slams Franco-German Iraq Plan", Reuters, February 25, 2003)
In reality, Blair's key claims are flatly contradicted by the UNSCOM inspectors who sought to disarm Iraq between 1991-98.