Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Is Niger the Smoking Gun? Blair Under Fire as White House Rejects British Intelligence Claiming Iraq Tried to Buy Uranium by Ben Russell and Andrew Buncombe 09 Jul 03 The White House has dealt a devastating blow to Tony Blair by rejecting as flawed British claims that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy uranium from Africa to restart his nuclear weapons programme. The Bush administration was in full retreat yesterday with officials admitting that the allegation should not have been included in President George Bush's State of the Union address. The American admission represented the first serious split between London and Washington over the case against Saddam and exploded into a full-scale row in Westminster as Mr Blair told senior MPs that the Government was standing by its story. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers demanded that Mr Blair release the intelligence behind the allegation to an independent inquiry. [Independent/UK] 6:29:07 AM  Google It!