Tony Blair is... posted by Richard Seymour

Also A Liar

Responding to disbelief about Blair's ignorance on the 45-minute claim, the Prime Minister's official spokesman says:

"The report from the Secret Intelligence Service did not specify the delivery system to which the 45 minutes applied. He was relying on information from the SIS which is very different from not having a clue."

As it happens, that little snippet of information tells us that the Prime Minister is lying too. The Prime Minister's foreword to the September 2002 "dossier" included the following claims:

"We judge Iraq has ... illegally retained up to 20 al-Hussein missiles with a range of 650km capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads."

"We judge Iraq has ... military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, including against his own Shia population. Some weapons are deployable within 45 minutes."

"Delivery means [for chemical and biological weapons] include: free fall bombs, artillery shells and rockets, helicopter and aircraft-borne sprayers, al-Hussein and al-Samoud/Ababil-100 ballistic missiles, L-29 unmanned jets."

These, presumably, are the weapons alleged to be able to strike Cyprus. Those chemical and biological weapons, allegedly deployable within 45 minutes, only have those delivery systems listed that could actually strike outside the country, far beyond Iraq's borders. The report from the SIS may not have specified the delivery systems, but Tony Blair did - and if he claims he was relying on the SIS report, then he is either lying or he admits that he misrepresented what was in that report.

Sorry to be a persistent pain in the arse, Tone, but is there any chance you'll drop the Jesus-On-The-Cross act and tell us which is the case?