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Tony Blair's infamous "Dossier"

Well, OK, so we've finally seen the "dossier" that Tony Blair's been promising us for ages.

You know, the one that he didn't actually deliver until the very morning that our MPs attended the House of Commons for the Emergency Debate on Iraq.
You know, the debate in which the MPs weren't allowed to vote.
You know — the vote — the principal means our MPs have for conveying the wishes of the electorate (you know, the people who haven't yet given Tony Blair a mandate to go swanning around the world saying Britain supports Bush) to the Government.
You know, the "democratic" institution that's supposed to run this country for the greater good, and according to the will, of its peoples.

Or maybe I've got it all wrong.

Anyway, this "dossier" thing...

The Independent ran a story that sums it up quite nicely, from which the following excerpts are revealing:

"Iraq has "military plans" for the use of chemical and biological weapons, the Government's long-awaited 50-page dossier on Saddam Hussein's regime claimed today.

But the document was swiftly condemned by one Labour rebel as a "damp squib" and a "PR stunt". And the Liberal Democrats said the dossier had "no clear evidence" of an imminent threat from Saddam.

The dossier, called 'Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction — The Assessment of the British Government', was published hours before MPs returned for an emergency recall of Parliament to debate the Iraq crisis.

Labour sceptics are determined to force a vote later tonight on a technical motion to show their opposition to any military action."

and a bit later on:

"One Labour opponent of military action against Iraq, Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott, told PA News:

"The document is a damp squib. It really consists of a re–working of information that was already public. It seems more like a PR stunt than a serious attempt to bring new information forward. Tony Blair will have to do better than this if he wants to convince the British public to go to war."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said:

"This dossier will require close scrutiny. At first glance, this dossier does not appear to show clear evidence of an immediate and imminent threat from Iraq. Nothing in this document should divert us from dealing with these matters through the United Nations."

None of this is really very surprising though. So I thought I'd best take a look at the "dossier" for myself.

Here's just a few choice quotes therefrom with my, ahem, "observations":

"Gathering intelligence inside Iraq is not easy. Saddam’s is one of the most secretive and dictatorial regimes in the world. So I believe people will understand why the Agencies cannot be specific about the sources, which have formed the judgements in this document, and why we cannot publish everything we know. We cannot, of course, publish the detailed raw intelligence. I and other Ministers have been briefed in detail on the intelligence and are satisfied as to its authority. I also want to pay tribute to our Intelligence and Security Services for the often extraordinary work that they do."

Hmm, convenient. Some of these unnamed sources wouldn't by chance be the American Intelligence agencies would they?
Seems to me that on a matter such as this, where we're being asked to support an unprovoked act of aggression toward a sovereign nation by a guy who threatens the UN and is clearly intent on disembowelling such ideals as truth, justice, and the rule of law then at the very least we should have the opportunity to assess the credibility of the sources of this "intelligence" for ourselves.
Or are we simply to trust our beloved Government on this? You know, the same Government that's made "spin doctor" a term of common currency.

Here are another couple of juicy tid-bits from Blair's "dossier":

"In today’s inter-dependent world, a major regional conflict does not stay confined to the region in question. Faced with someone who has shown himself capable of using WMD, I believe the international community has to stand up for itself and ensure its authority is upheld...

The threat posed to international peace and security, when WMD are in the hands of a brutal and aggressive regime like Saddam’s, is real. Unless we face up to the threat, not only do we risk undermining the authority of the UN, whose resolutions he defies, but more importantly and in the longer term, we place at risk the lives and prosperity of our own people."

I like that bit about the international community standing up for itself, and the need not to risk undermining the authority of the UN.

Well, it seems to me that when some gun-toting führer dictates to the UN how it'd better do something about Iraq cos if it doesn't he will, then what we have here is not simply a case of undermining the authority of the UN, but flagrantly slapping it in the face.
And, putting it bluntly, if we support such a (sorry, did I say "gun-toting führer"? I should have said "respectable politician". I do apologise) then we'll certainly place at risk the lives and prosperity of our people, both in the long term and now.

Here's another one:

"Iraq’s declared aim was to produce a missile warhead with a 20-kiloton yield and weapons designs were produced for the simplest implosion weapons. These were similar to the device used at Nagasaki in 1945."

Nagasaki — you know, one of two Japanese cities destroyed by nuclear weapons, both of which were deployed by the only country ever to have used such weapons in an act of aggression — America.

And here's another bit about the source of the "dossier's" information that virtually admits its based on little more than speculation:

"Intelligence rarely offers a complete account of activities which are designed to remain concealed. The nature of Saddam’s regime makes Iraq a difficult target for the intelligence services. Intelligence, however, has provided important insights into Iraqi programmes and Iraqi military thinking. Taken together with what is already known from other sources, this intelligence builds our understanding of Iraq’s capabilities and adds significantly to the analysis already in the public domain. But intelligence sources need to be protected, and this limits the detail that can be made available."

You can read the "dossier" for yourself at UK Online and its also available at:

http://www.pm.gov.uk
http://www.fco.gov.uk
http://www.mod.uk
http://www.official-documents.co.uk

The reason I've referred to this "dossier" in quotes throughout is that it hardly qualifies for such a grandiose term — its really little more than, as described above, a PR stunt. Probably more than a little influenced by Bush's rhetoric masters (sorry, scriptwriters) to attempt over here what's already happening in America, i.e., stirring up fear and the feeling of being threatened.
After all, Blair's been running around like Bush's lapdog for over a year now — why should we believe he's capable of producing anything at all independent of his master?

Of course, the ones I really feel sorry for are the ordinary American people. I simply can't credit that essentially good-natured and outreaching Americans have been hoodwinked by all the scare-mongering into believing that Bush is the new Saviour of the World.