Ministers 'were shown Iraq warning'

Seven senior Cabinet ministers were shown the intelligence assessment which warned that war against Iraq could increase the threat from terrorism - including Clare Short, who quit over the conflict, Downing Street said on Friday.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Chancellor Gordon Brown were all given copies of the Joint Intelligence Committee document, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said.

And the then International Development Secretary Ms Short, Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott would have received copies as well, said Downing Street.

The disclosure came as Downing Street mounted a determined fightback to counter claims that Mr Blair had misled the country into war.

But Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith called on Mr Blair to explain why he over-ruled the intelligence warnings.

Mr Duncan Smith said: "Tony Blair was entitled to make that judgment and to take that decision. But given public concern over the controversy of the September dossier on Iraqi weapons, he should now explain why he did that. The country is entitled to know."

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Even the C.I.A. stated that Saddam would use WMD if and only if we attacked him...so we had no justification for an invasion of Iraq.

Anyone could see that an unprovoked attack against Iraq would stir up trouble in the form of Islamist terrorism.

That British intelligence report was just stating the obvious.

So two, Blair is implicating his cabinet in his own personal decision and holding them to political ransom.

He's gonna make lots of friends with this one...

You just know they're in shit knee deep.

the UK.

This tactic is obvious. The Hutton inquiry just established that Blair had enough information which he could use reasonable judgment to conclude that invading Iraq would make the UK safer. Nobody doubts that he got information that suggested many different things, so it should't be a surprise that there's a document that says there might be a downside (and this is a fairly obvious one). Certainly Blair could make a judgement, like, well I'll accept that risk, and tripple our counter-terrorism efforts to offset that risk.

So, if this is so easy to address, why make a stink about it. It seems like a silly thing to do especially if there hasn't been an attack yet. It's only an issue if there is an attack (otherwise, it looks like Blair had good judgment -- he weighed the risks and he got it right).

Hmmm. Well, if there WERE an attack, now you have IDS with his name and face on this issue, and you have a document which says Blair should have known better. This would be very very damaging.

So, conspiracy theorists, if Bush wants to sabotage Blair (which is painfully obvious to me, but not to many of you, I know), then now is the time to do it in a very evil manner. Do you think Tony is putting the UK on DefCon 5 as a result of this? If he isn't, he should be.

When nothing else works, that's when the right wing starts killing people an causing mayhem.