‘Nightmare if Iraq not disarmed’

THE world will be plunged into a “living nightmare” if it fails to deal with Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned yesterday.

His tough stance towards Iraq was motivated by the fear that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would one day be used by a repressive regime like Saddam’s, or be passed to terrorists with no regard for human life, he said. The prime minister dismissed an Iraqi offer to destroy ballistic missiles which breach United Nations restrictions as an empty gesture, designed to undermine the unity of the international community.

Speaking to Labour’s Welsh conference in Swansea, he acknowledged the concerns of many party activists about his approach to the crisis, saying: “I know many of you find it hard to understand why I care so deeply about this. I tell you: it is fear.

“Not the fear that Saddam is about to launch a strike on a British town or city tomorrow or the next day. Not a conventional fear about a conventional threat. But the fear that one day these new threats of weapons of mass destruction, rogue States and international terrorism combine to deliver a catastrophe to our world; and the shame then of knowing that I saw that threat, day after day, and I did nothing to stop it.”

Intelligence crossed his desk every day of terrorist efforts to breach the security of the western world and wreak destruction, said Mr Blair.

“The belief I have is this: that if we do not take a stand now against the growth of this chemical, biological and nuclear weapons threat, then at some point a state or a terrorist group, pursuing extremism with no care for human life, will use such weapons, and not just Britain but the world will be plunged into a living nightmare from which we will struggle long and hard to awake.” Mr Blair’s stance was the subject of a barely-veiled attack by the Pope in a message to newly-enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Just days after celebrating Mass with the Blairs in Rome, John Paul II wrote: “The world stands on the brink of yet another war.

“At times, the ardent and legitimate human longing for freedom and security manifests itself through the wrong means, means which themselves are violent and destructive.”