BRITAIN: British Defence Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon has said UN weapons inspectors do not need to find "smoking gun" proof that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction to trigger war.
As he prepared to order the 7th Armoured Brigade to the Gulf, Mr Hoon made it clear "indications" or "persuasive evidence" that President Saddam Hussein has nuclear, biological or chemical weapons could be enough to warrant military action by Britain and the US.
"It's not literally a smoking gun [the inspectors need to find\]," Mr Hoon told the Sunday Telegraph. "It is persuasive evidence that confirms what we believe to be the case - that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Such evidence could take the form of the cache of empty chemical warheads found by the inspectors last week; the discovery of a shell, missile or other prohibited device; it could come in documentary form; or result from interviews the inspectors might conduct with someone who had been working on weapons development programmes.
"We would expect Hans Blix and his team to discover indications of them - a shell or a missile or something clearly prohibited, or documentary evidence," said Mr Hoon, ahead of a Commons statement this week expected to bring the number of British troops destined for the Gulf close to 20,000.
Mr Hoon's comments came the day after thousands of people across the UK joined worldwide demonstrations against war with Iraq, and as a former Labour foreign office minister, Mr Doug Henderson, appealed to the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to listen to "the very, very grave doubts" of the British public about the looming military action. For the second day demonstrators locked themselves together and attempted to blockade a major military base in Northwood, north west London.
However, even as military preparations intensified, the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, accused the Blair government of sending "mixed messages" about the prospects for war.
In an interview on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Kennedy claimed that the work of the UN inspectors was being hampered by "noises off" from the British and US governments. "I don't think the government are helping the case in this country - and the American administration even worse - by sending out such mixed messages," he said.
"We are deploying British troops into the region and they are not being given a clear idea - are they liable to be engaged in conflict or are they not?"