Saddam's arsenal
From William Shawcross
Sir: Stephen Glover demands (Media studies. 19 June) that British papers such as the Sun. the Times and the Telegraph should. . consider apologising for misleading their readers' about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Why? The entire UN Security Council believed that Saddam still had such weapons and demanded in Resolution 1441 of November 2002 that he co-operate fully in revealing and surrendering all the WMD materiel and programmes he had. He failed to do so and war followed. Since then, we have not found the stockpiles of chemicals and biological agents that many people, including myself, expected, but that does not mean the world was wrong. We have discovered illegal missiles which could have been quickly armed. Rolf Ekeus. the careful Swedish former head of the UN weapons inspectors, said last summer that Iraqi policy had been not to produce warfare agents as such but to concentrate on design and engineering 'with the purpose of activating production and shipping of warfare agents and munitions directly to the battlefield in the event of war'. He called the attacks on Bush and Blair for the failure to find weapons stockpiles 'a distortion and trivialisation of a major threat to international peace and security'.
After the Gulf war, the UN discovered that Saddam was far closer to obtaining nuclear weapons than had been realised. Since then he had spent 12 years tying, obfuscating and finally forcing the UN inspectors out. The President of the United States was right when he said that if the world failed to act against Saddam, he would realise that 'the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal. . . . If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the UN Security Council, and clear evidence of a mass destruction programme.' Which President was that? Bill Clinton.
William Shawcross
St Mawes, Cornwall
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