(March 31, 2002). If it was April 1, these articles from the Sunday Times would make more sense.
Firstly, a report that the British Forestry Commission is ‘landscaping’ forests to make them less ‘frightening’ and ‘less intimidating’, spending millions of pounds and chopping down up to 15% of trees in some forests.
“We have started developing more areas where people can feel safe, with dappled shade and open areas where flowers such as bluebells can spread”. They’ve also added ‘water features’ such as a man-made lake, as “water features seem to hold the greatest aesthetic value rather than the actual trees”.
Secondly, “Tony Blair has been forced to abandon plans to release an intelligence dossier on Iraq because it did not contain enough evidence to support a military campaign against the country”. The document was withdrawn “because it failed to establish that Saddam Hussein was a growing threat”.
It’s a shame for Blair, because he’s expected to make a “fresh pledge of military support for any American action against Iraq” when he meets Dubya on Friday. And worse, a “senior MI6 official” said, “we just do not believe Saddam is sponsoring international terrorism”.
“Blair is now expected to urge Bush to publish his own dossier based on CIA intelligence, or risk losing a worldwide propoganda war against Iraq”.