British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Monday it was "disappointing" that inspectors have not found "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, but he still believes ousted leader Saddam Hussein had them and that war against Iraq and Saddam's regime was justified.
Straw said the issue facing lawmakers when they voted to go to war in March 2003 was Saddam's failure to comply with UN resolutions that threatened "serious consequences" if Baghdad failed to show it had handed over or destroyed its "weapons of mass destruction".
David Kay, the top US inspector, who resigned last week, said Sunday that he believed that Saddam did not possess banned weapons. Straw rejected that suggestion.
"I don't accept that, nor is David Kay saying that. He is saying there are a number of unresolved issues," Straw said in an interview with BBC radio.
"I accept from a personal point of view that it is certainly disappointing that the inspectors including those of the Iraq Survey Group have not so far adduced further evidence of what the whole of the international community believes, and genuinely believed about weapons programs and weapons stockpiles which Saddam had," Straw added.
Straw stated he believed more evidence would emerge over time. "If there were no weapons, and I believe that there were, and if there were no programs, and I believe that there were, what on earth explains why Saddam Hussein, 12 years after the Gulf War and months after he was given an ultimatum to come clean, refused to cooperate full with the inspectors?" he asked.
Kay confidently predicted last year that weapons would be found. However, after nine months of searching, he said Sunday, "I don't think they exist."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said on National Public Radio.
Straw said Monday that the decision by British lawmakers in the House of Commons to take military action was the "only alternative" based on the evidence available at the time.
"The decision we made on March 18 to take military action was justified then in terms of enforcing international law and is still more justified now," he said.
"If we had walked away from that as some in the Security Council were urging, Saddam Hussein would have been re-empowered and re-emboldened, that's absolutely clear, and he would have acted as a further very powerful destabilizing force on the whole of the Middle East," he added.
In addition, Straw said that Saddam could have averted military action by complying with the UN demands. "There is nothing in resolution 1441 that Saddam Hussein could not have complied with," he said. (Albawaba.com)
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