Iraq

'There are Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and we are going to root them out' stated Tony Blair for over a year. In fact it was one of his primary reasons for citing the need to go to war with Iraq.

In an interview with Sky News in May 2003, Blair was adamant that Saddam had WMD such as nuclear, chemical or biological weaponry. This was followed shortly by articles in the press such as BBC News in June where Blair is quoted as saying: ‘Over the coming weeks and months we will assemble this evidence and then we will give it to the people' ‘And I have no doubt whatever that the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there. Absolutely,’ he said.

No WMD have been found despite extensive searches.

North Korea

North Korea meanwhile remain the ongoing cause behind international crisis talks, over their nuclear weapons programme. Nuclear weapons are just a part of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction.

They constantly express their intent to use their WMD on any country they perceive to be a threat to their way of life.

Blair and Bush Investigation

Bush was forced to concede that Iraq never had WMD because none have been found to date, and has set up an official investigation.

As England usually does, Blair followed suit and set up the UK's own inquiry to examine their intelligence reports which were used to benchmark claims of WMD in Iraq.

North Korea Investigation

US satellite reconnaissance revealed in October 2002 that North Korea had a nuclear weapons programme, which was never denied. UN’s nuclear inspectors were then expelled from the country while North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue their aims of making WMD.

These weapons included long range-missiles which have been tested over the Northern Pacific.

Liberal Democrats and Iraq

Sir Menzies Campbell, for Liberal Democrats, is quoted as saying; ‘Just exactly what was the British Government's state of knowledge at the time of military action about the presence of weapons of mass destruction and the facilities for manufacturing them; and what do they know now?’

The Lib Dems, not happy with the remit for UK's inquiry, suggested it be made broader to ask why the Government made the decision of going to war with Iraq.

In The House of Commons Tony Blair resisted their challenge to include this information, stating it went 'against democracy' to remit such a question. His speech was constantly interrupted with shouts of 'whitewash' from the public gallery which forced the Speaker of the House to suspend the meeting and remove the public.

Liberal Democrats and North Korea

In December 2002, in a reported statement made to his party, which appears to have generated little media attention, Sir Campbell said, ‘Following its admission that it has been pursuing a military nuclear programme, this demonstrates that North Korea poses a unique and frightening threat.’ and ‘Every possible political, diplomatic and economic mechanism must now be employed to rein in North Korea.’

Questions

With Lord Hutton’s own inquiry concluded, several questions were left open, namely:

• Where, in the Intelligence reports, were the conclusions for stating Iraq had WMD?
• Were there any findings to support the theory that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the world?
• If no immediate danger was perceived, how did this portray an urgent need to go to war?
• Was there any evidence to support the claims that war against Iraq was the only way forward?

The sources of intelligence reports also bring into scrutiny the question of any tampering with these reports, which may have implied

a case for war without hard evidence, if found who did the tampering.

In the confusion arising from who said what and why, Paul Bremer, Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority initially refuted claims (made by Tony Blair in an interview on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme last year) that ‘massive evidence’ had been unearthed by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG).

Bremer is quoted as saying, ‘I don't know where those words come from but that is not what (ISG chief) David Kay has said’. When it was pointed out to Mr Bremer that Tony Blair was the source of these words, Bremer appeared to back down from his earlier stance of refuting Blair’s claims by saying; ‘There is actually a lot of evidence that had been made public’.

In December 2003, Claire Short, who left the cabinet in protest, called upon the Prime Minister’s resignation. She said, ‘Going to war without the second UN resolution had been a disaster’. She is quoted as saying Blair deceived the British public over the war with Iraq.

North Korea - Real Threat?

There are many who believe that North Korea sell and exchange their evolving nuclear know-how, weapon components as well as weapons, such as Scud-type missiles, to countries such as Iran, Syria and Pakistan, although Pakistan deny they have traded its nuclear weapons expertise for North Korean missile technology.

Reasons behind War with Iraq

Ann Clwyd, Blair's special envoy to Iraq, told Sky News in 2003, in her defence of Blair's decision to go to war with Iraq: "Do you just allow a country to carry on killing its own people, to use chemical weapons against its own people, to have mass disappearances of people?'

A Country Killing its Own People

North Korea have always made it known how much they despise Western cultures and will overthrow any attempts to ‘meddle’ in their affairs, which seem to include using their own people for experimental warfare. They have built a huge storage of plutonium as well as stating their intention to use nuclear and chemical strategies against anything they deem a target – a real threat?

New chemical weapons are tested on people who are imprisoned without charge, as reported by Olenka Frenkiel on the BBC documentary, ‘This World’ February 2004, from which a full transcript was made publicly available.

North Korea's President Kim Jong II invokes the policy that anyone who is critical of his regime must be punished, as well as all their relatives down to three generations, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child.

Hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned in this way into forced labour and starvation. Those who try to escape are publicly executed.

Should this mean North Korea deserves war? It certainly seems to fit the criteria Blair and Bush used to support the war with Iraq.

How do such destitute countries like North Korea fund their weaponry. It has been suggested that at least part is funded by smuggling and selling drugs like Heroin.

Is War the Answer?

Is it the fact that North Korea do possess WMD that inhibit forces like Blair and Bush

to destroy this ‘axis of evil’ as President Bush has named the regime.

Fear may well be the reason behind the reluctance for the US and their allies to use warfare against North Korea as they have announced they have nuclear bombs.

Even if this was mere propaganda they do have enough missiles, field artillery and chemical weapons to annihilate South Korean capital, Seoul, which could decimate over 37'000 US troops based in the South. There are also the economic causalities to be considered, impacting neighbouring countries such as Japan.

These are the same arguments Bush and Blair gave for going to war with Iraq. Only time can decide if there is a difference.

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