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Tony Blair asked military to plan Iraq invasion nine months before war

 
The Times
December 1, 2009
David Brown
 
Tony Blair ordered military chiefs secretly to prepare plans for an invasion of Iraq nine months before the start of the war, an inquiry into the conflict was told yesterday.
 
Sir David Manning, the Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser, said that Mr Blair asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to draw up options in June 2002 when he discovered that the United States was planning for war. The following month Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, offered three alternatives. The first "in-place package" involved using forces already in the region; the second "enhanced package" would provide additional maritime, aircraft and special forces; the third "discrete [separate] package" was to send 20,000 troops.
 
Mr Blair initially offered the "second package" when the MoD was asked to attend a planning conference with the US Central Command in September 2002.
 
However, after discussions between Mr Blair and Mr Hoon they decided to offer "package three" — the plan to send an army division to support the invasion — a month before the United Nations agreed resolution 1441 ordering Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
 
Asked why Mr Blair had agreed to the most significant British commitment of troops, Sir David replied: "I think Prime Minister Blair thought that if it was right it was worth doing properly." He added: "The Prime Minister concluded that we had always said that if we had exhausted the diplomatic route we would take part in military action."
 
Sir David told the Chilcot inquiry that Mr Blair’s delay in taking decisions on the military options caused concern within the MoD because of the time needed to deploy such a large force. "I think there was some uneasiness in the MoD about the lateness of the decisions. I think it was one reason why, although the Prime Minister took no decisions in July, he was pressed again in September," he said.
 
"I think there was a sense in the MoD that we had to try to ensure that the policy that we were following diplomatically did not mean that it excluded military options."
 
Sir David also revealed details of a private meeting Mr Blair had at the President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, on the first weekend of April 2002. After the meeting the Prime Minister discussed "regime change" in Iraq for the first time.
 
"I look back at Crawford as the moment that he [Mr Blair] was saying, yes, there is a route through this that is an international, peaceful one and it is through the UN, but if it doesn’t work, we will be willing to undertake regime change," said Sir David.
 
He said that he had always believed that after the first Security Council resolution was passed providing for the return of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, a second resolution would be necessary to authorise military force.
 
Sir David was critical of the lack of planning for postwar Iraq in the United States, where responsibility passed from the State Department to the Pentagon. "I think the assumption that the Americans would have a coherent plan which would be implemented after the war was obviously proved to be unfounded," he said.
 
He condemned the decision by Paul Bremer, who was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to disband the Iraq Army and purge members of the Baath party. "I can only say that it took us completely by surprise and judging from my conversations with Dr [Condoleezza] Rice [the former US Secretary of State] it took her by surprise too. It was a mistake."
 
Mr Blair also denied that Lord Goldsmith, then the Attorney-General, was pressured into changing his mind over the legality of the war in March 2003.
 
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
 
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| Ander Nieuws week 50 / nieuwe oorlog 2009 |