The phantom fighters
ETCHED for ever in the nation’s memory will be Tony Blair’s infamous assertion that Iraq’s Saddam hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, ready to be deployed within 45 minutes.
As MPs prepare for today’s momentous vote, this paper fears that a claim made by David Cameron to support the case for bombing Syria may similarly belong in the realm of fantasy.
This is the Prime Minister’s contention – based, he says, on ‘intelligence sources’ – that an army of 70,000 moderate Sunnis is waiting in Syria to complete the allied bombers’ work of neutralising IS.
Forget that this sounds hauntingly reminiscent of dodgy dossiers and 45-minute warnings. The fact is, as Michael Burleigh describes vividly on this page, the claim simply doesn’t stand up to serious examination.
For these 70,000 are not a single force, but divided among more than 100 rebel groups, often fighting each other. If they have a common purpose, it is to depose President Assad (whom Russia and Iran, our would-be allies, wish to protect).
After Jeremy Corbyn’s capitulation to demands for a free vote, this paper accepts that MPs’ agreement to bomb Syria seems almost inevitable.
Even more certain, however, is that no bombing campaign can succeed without boots on the ground to drive out the barbarians of IS and re-establish order.
After tonight’s vote, assuming he wins it, Mr Cameron must sit down at once with our allies and work out a serious strategy for what happens next.
If he truly believes in this phantom army of moderates, he’s fooling only himself. AS the Conservatives appoint solicitors Clifford Chance to conduct an independent inquiry into the ‘Tatler Tory’ scandal of adultery, blackmail and suicide, the Mail has one request: will the party and its chairman, Lord Feldman, unequivocally declare all their past financial links and dealings with the firm? DOES Labour’s Alan Johnson honestly expect to be believed when he claims that pulling out of the EU would increase Britain’s risk of a Parisstyle terrorist attack? has he really so little respect for voters’ common sense?