WMD: Their own words

Blair's foreword to Government's September 2002 Iraq dossier:

What I believe the intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons ...

I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped.

The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.

Blair's speech to Parliament, March 18, 2003, when he secured backing for the war:

We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years - contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence - Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

Blair to parliamentary committee, July 2003:

For me, the jury is not out. I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes.

Blair's Christmas 2003 message to the armed forces in Iraq:

The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles.

Bush outlines "Iraqi threat", October 7, 2002:

The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.

Bush makes the case against Iraq, March 17, 2003:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

Bush television interview about weapons, April 24, 2003:

The United States is learning in interrogations and interviews with Iraqi scientists that "perhaps he [Saddam] destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some" and that "it's going to take time to find them".

After talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, June 2, 2003:

We've discovered a weapons system - biological labs that Iraq denied she had and labs that were prohibited under the UN resolutions.

Bush in a televised speech to the nation, September 7, 2003:

Had we failed to act, the dictator's WMD programmes would continue to this day.'

Bush before meeting his cabinet, February 2, 2004:

What we don't know yet is what we thought, and what the Iraqi Survey Group has found, and we want to look at that.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq