Jonathan Cook, journalist
I can't stress strongly enough how important it is to be reading the
posts of former British ambassador Craig Murray as you try to weigh the
claims being made by the UK government about the Salisbury nerve agent
attack.
As Murray points out, Boris Johnson's new claim that
the UK learnt "within the last decade" that Russia had stockpiles of
Novichok nerve agents raises more questions than it answers.
Murray:
In short, we should be extremely sceptical of this sudden new
information that Boris Johnson has produced out of a hat. If the UK was
in possession of intelligence about a secret Russian chemical weapons
programme, it was not under a legal obligation to tell Andrew Marr, but
it was under a legal obligation to tell the OPCW. Not only did the UK
fail to do that, the UK Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Adams was last year
fulsomely congratulating the OPCW on the completion of the destruction
of Russia’s chemical weapons stocks, without a single hint or
reservation entered that Russia may have undeclared or secret stocks.
