'Invented' weapons claims absurd, says Blair/speaking in Warsaw/telegraph/30/05

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/30/ublur.xml

'Invented' weapons claims absurd, says Blair
(Filed: 30/05/2003)

Tony Blair has hit back at critics who claim that the Government forced the intelligence services to fabricate evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

He called the idea "completely absurd" and said he had "absolutely no doubt at all" that the evidence of Saddam's WMD was completely true.

The Prime Minister was speaking in Warsaw, where he was having talks with Polish Premier Leszek Miller, following his visit to British troops in Iraq yesterday. Mr Blair accused those who had opposed war with Iraq all along of seizing on the issue of WMD now to pursue their case.

He said: "I have just caught up overnight with some of the allegations that have been made, so let me just say this. The evidence that we had of weapons of mass destruction was evidence drawn up and accepted by the Joint Intelligence Committee.

"That evidence of weapons of mass destruction is evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt about at all. What's more, the idea that we authorised or made our intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd."

30 May 2003: No 10 in Saddam weapons 'blame game'
29 May 2003: Blair walks into Gulf war storm
29 May 2003: Rumsfeld admits doubts over Iraqi WMDs
25 September 2002: Why Saddam must be stopped
26 September 2002: Iraq dossier 'has failed to convince the public'
7 February 2003: Downing St dossier 'full of old research'

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