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Tony Blair Justifies Iraq War
Aired August 28, 2003 - 14:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: You have heard the British prime minister say it before. His nation was justified in going to war in Iraq. Today, though, Tony Blair says it under oath during an inquiry into the death of a British arms expert.
CNN's Robin Oakley has the details from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was an historic occasion: a British prime minister only for the second time facing a public inquiry of this kind, Tony Blair, of course. The job description of the British prime minister requires him to answer lots of questions, weekly in the House of Commons, monthly these days before the media.
And Tony Blair is a lawyer by training, so he wasn't too phased by being before the inquiry. But what we did see was some of the passion he felt about the central accusation of which Dr. David Kelly, the dead weapon scientist, was the part source, a story by the British Broadcasting Corporation that the British government had sexed up its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons program by Tony Blair and his aides in Downing Street inserting into that dossier the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy chemical or biological weapons at 45 minutes notice, that they had known that report to be wrong, and that they had done so against the wishes of the intelligence services.
Now, Tony Blair said passionately that that was an attack on the very heart of the office of prime minister and the way in which the intelligence services did their job and, if that report had been true, then he should have quit as prime minister -- so real passion behind that. He defended himself against accusations the government had unfairly pushed Dr. Kelly into the public domain to face a grilling by an investigative committee of M.P.s in the House of Commons by saying that he had to play it by the book.
Once Dr. Kelly's name started to emerge in some circles, he couldn't be accused of a cover-up. And, on the controversial weapons dossier, Mr. Blair again defended himself against questions in the inquiry, saying that it had been quite legitimate for his communications director, Alastair Campbell, to toughen up the language in that dossier, so long as the intelligence services themselves kept control of the information in the dossier and what went into it and what did not go into it.
They had kept that control, said Mr. Blair. So he's come through the inquiry certainly without any further dents on his government. But he still faces public opinion polls saying that two-thirds of the public have lost trust in the government and believe that dossier was sexed up. There's a lot more political recovery to be done yet.
Robin Oakley, CNN, at the Royal Courts of Justice, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 28, 2003 - 14:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: You have heard the British prime minister say it before. His nation was justified in going to war in Iraq. Today, though, Tony Blair says it under oath during an inquiry into the death of a British arms expert.
CNN's Robin Oakley has the details from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was an historic occasion: a British prime minister only for the second time facing a public inquiry of this kind, Tony Blair, of course. The job description of the British prime minister requires him to answer lots of questions, weekly in the House of Commons, monthly these days before the media.
And Tony Blair is a lawyer by training, so he wasn't too phased by being before the inquiry. But what we did see was some of the passion he felt about the central accusation of which Dr. David Kelly, the dead weapon scientist, was the part source, a story by the British Broadcasting Corporation that the British government had sexed up its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons program by Tony Blair and his aides in Downing Street inserting into that dossier the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy chemical or biological weapons at 45 minutes notice, that they had known that report to be wrong, and that they had done so against the wishes of the intelligence services.
Now, Tony Blair said passionately that that was an attack on the very heart of the office of prime minister and the way in which the intelligence services did their job and, if that report had been true, then he should have quit as prime minister -- so real passion behind that. He defended himself against accusations the government had unfairly pushed Dr. Kelly into the public domain to face a grilling by an investigative committee of M.P.s in the House of Commons by saying that he had to play it by the book.
Once Dr. Kelly's name started to emerge in some circles, he couldn't be accused of a cover-up. And, on the controversial weapons dossier, Mr. Blair again defended himself against questions in the inquiry, saying that it had been quite legitimate for his communications director, Alastair Campbell, to toughen up the language in that dossier, so long as the intelligence services themselves kept control of the information in the dossier and what went into it and what did not go into it.
They had kept that control, said Mr. Blair. So he's come through the inquiry certainly without any further dents on his government. But he still faces public opinion polls saying that two-thirds of the public have lost trust in the government and believe that dossier was sexed up. There's a lot more political recovery to be done yet.
Robin Oakley, CNN, at the Royal Courts of Justice, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
