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| Sunday, 19 September 2004 |
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Bush wanted to complete 'unfinished business' in Iraq - paper LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) British officials believe U.S. President George W. Bush went to war in Iraq last year because he wanted to complete his father's "unfinished business", Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday. "Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) programme will not show much advance in recent years," the Telegraph quoted a leaked confidential memo by a senior Foreign Office official as saying in March last year. "Military operations need clear and compelling military objectives. For Iraq 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam (Hussein)." British Prime Minister Tony Blair built a case for war on the basis that Baghdad had banned weapons of mass destruction, although no biological or chemical weapons have been found following Saddam's overthrow. Downing Street on Saturday said it would not comment on the leaked documents but, added the government "firmly believes that Iraq is a better place for the removal of Saddam Hussein". The Daily Telegraph said another leaked document showed British officials did not see Bush's war on terror as being a significant part of U.S. decision-making with regard to Iraq. "The swift success of the war in Afghanistan, distrust of U.N. sanctions and inspections regimes and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors," it quoted a paper compiled by the Cabinet Office Overseas and Defence Secretariat as saying. Bush's father was president during the first Gulf War when a U.S.-led coalition freed Kuwait in 1991 and then drove Saddam's forces back deep into Iraq before withdrawing. The leaked papers also showed that officials, including Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, expressed concern about possible chaos in a post-Saddam Iraq months before the first bullet was fired. "No one has satisfactorily answered how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," the Telegraph quoted Straw as saying in a note to Blair marked "Secret and Personal". |
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