Did Tony Blair ever actually state that Saddam had WMDs which could be launched in 45 minutes? This has become part of the general mythology of the anti-war left; cast doubt on this at your peril, as the sneers drown you out: “Of course he did – that was how he persuaded Parliament to back him. All lies of course….”
Look at the parliamentary record on Blair’s speech back in September 2002 when he was introducing the government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD programme (via Tim Blair):
It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population …
So the dossier states, yes, that Saddam had WMDs, and further that he had plans for WMDs capable of activation within 45 minutes.
Of course there’s still a problem with the WMDs. Where are they: in Syria?…or a fantasy in Saddam’s head? But this idea that Tony Blair claimed that WMDs capable of being launched in 45 minutes were in place at the time, and against the West, is not true.
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