By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor4 April 2003
Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, launched a vitriolic attack on Robert Fisk of The Independent yesterday, claiming there was no conclusive proof US cruise missiles had bombed markets in Baghdad.
Mr Hoon hit out after Labour MPs used an emergency Commons statement on the war to highlight Fisk's reports on the civilian casualties caused by explosions in the city last week. The Independent carried detailed reports on the two incidents. The first was last Wednesday when 14 Iraqis were killed and the second was on Friday when 62 died. Fisk collected shrapnel at the scene of the bombing in the Shu'ala district from what turned out to be a cruise missile made in Texas by Raytheon.
Alice Mahon, Labour MP for Halifax, seized on the report when she highlighted the number of deaths of civilian children in the war on Iraq to date.
"The two market bombings killed a high number of children. If he wants information on the second bombing, he can go to yesterday's Independent, where they have got the number of the missile," she said.
Mr Hoon said there was not "a shred of corroborating evidence", other than that "supplied by Saddam Hussein's regime", that American forces were responsible for the two marketplace tragedies.
"I would really caution Ms Mahon against relying on a particular account. First of all the original account of the first market place bomb, set out in graphic detail in the Independent newspaper," he said.
"If as I'm sure she did, she read it carefully, she would have seen the source of information to suggest it was the responsibility of coalition forces was someone the journalist spoke to in the marketplace. That was the source of the allegation it was a coalition responsibility."
Mr Hoon had also read "with some care" The Independent's reports on the second incident but was equally unconvinced. He revealed for the first time Western intelligence claims that Iraqi authorities had been seen "clearing up" the bomb site soon afterwards.
"The allegation is that because a piece of cruise missile was handed to the journalist it somehow proved it was caused by coalition forces," he said. "A considerable number of cruise missiles have been targeted at Baghdad in the past few weeks. I can also tell Ms Mahon we have very clear evidence immediately after those two explosions there were representatives of the regime clearing up in and around the marketplace. Now why they should be doing that other than to perhaps disguise their own responsibility for what took place is an interesting question.
"What is important about this is all of us should look very sceptically at these kinds of reports, relying only on known and agreed facts." Mr Hoon repeatedly cast doubt on TV reports on Wednesday that Iraqi civilians had died from cluster bombs dropped near the village of Hillah. MPs and the public should "suspend their belief" because the graphic images were the product of Iraqi minders taking television crews to particular locations.
But Glenda Jackson, Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, condemned the suggestion that journalists should be censored and pointed out several reputable British reporters had already died in Iraq.
Mr Hoon replied: "I'm certainly prepared to consider criticism of coalition forces if it is warranted. But what I'm not prepared to do is to accept at face value an account of an incident given by a man in a marketplace in Baghdad. It is simply absurd to suggest that we've got to accept that kind of account.
"We are prepared to recognise we might have some responsibility but at the same time we don't rush to judgement in blaming, in this case, coalition forces without there being a shred of corroborating evidence other than that supplied by Saddam Hussein's regime."
