Reporting on the Reporters

VP presents Ledes from Around the World.

From AP:

Iraq has military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, and has tried to acquire “significant quantities” of uranium from Africa, the British government said today as it published a dossier of evidence about Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction.

The BBC:

Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned of the urgent need to act after the publication of the UK’s long awaited dossier of evidence against Iraq.

From CNN:

Iraq has dismissed a 50-page dossier published by the British government on Tuesday.

From the NYT:

Britain today published a long-awaited dossier asserting that the regime of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq was continuing to expand stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and had plans to use them. Arguing for urgent action by the West, it said that some of the weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes.

From The Guardian:

The prime minister, Tony Blair, today stood before the Commons to defend government policy on Iraq.

From the Times of India

British charges about Iraq’s alleged weapons of destructions are “baseless”, Culture Minister Hamad Yussef Hammadi said on Tuesday.

Interestingly, only CNN and the Indian paper led with Iraq’s predictable naysaying of Blair’s report. All the others reported the story straight, even the BBC and the New York Times. Only The Guardian played the story domestically, claiming Blair is somehow on the defensive.

Oh, and here’s how Arab News played it:

Saudi Arabia yesterday denounced Israel