Meanwhile in London, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain had never claimed that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an �immediate and imminent threat� to the world with its weapons of mass destruction.
�Neither the prime minister nor I nor anyone acting on our behalf have ever used the words `immediate' or `imminent' in relation to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein,� he told a parliamentary committee probing allegations that the government exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam's regime.
�What we talked about (in a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction) was a `current and serious' threat � which is very different,� he said.
(AFP) Jordan Times June 25, 2003{the public may well have interpreted what we said as Saddam's regime being an 'immediate and imminent threat', but that is the public's fault, not ours.}
