British Inquiry: Tony Blair and George Bush decided on Iraq war a year before invasion
November 26, 2009
(ChattahBox) — The in progress Chilcot inquiry into the war in Iraq seems to indicate former British prime minister Tony Blair and the U.S. president George W. Bush preemptively decided to partner in war, then scrambled around for supporting evidence, and moved forward anyway knowing their were no weapons of mass destruction. The Chilcot Inquiry, was announced on 15 June 2009 by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to look into the country’s role in the Iraq War
Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, the most high-profile figure to give evidence so far, testified that former British prime minister Tony Blair and George Bush agreed to a deal to go after Saddam Hussein a year before the Iraq war. Sir Christopher, who was Britain’s ambassador to the US between 1997 and 2003, was called to give evidence about the changing nature of British and American policy towards Iraq in the two years before the invasion of March 2003. Meyer, then Britain’s ambassador to Washington, said Blair’s line seemed to harden following talks at the Crawford ranch in April 2002, much of which were held in private with no advisers present. He said that the timing of the invasion was dictated by the “unforgiving nature” of the military build-up rather than the outcome of diplomacy or UN weapons inspections, which had not been given sufficient time.
Sir William Ehrman, the director of international security at the Foreign Office from 2000 to 2002, told the inquiry that Blair received intelligence that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction had been ”dismantled” 10 days before Britain invaded Iraq, the inquiry has been told.: ”We were getting, in the very final days before military action, some [intelligence] on chemical and biological weapons that they were dismantled and [Saddam] might not have the munitions to deliver it.
”On March 10 [2003] we got a report saying the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn’t yet ordered their reassembly, and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.”
Despite the information, coalition forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003.
Comments
Got something to say? **Please Note** - Comments may be edited for clarity or obscenity, and all comments are published at the discretion of ChattahBox.com - Comments are the opinions of the individuals leaving them, and not of ChattahBox.com or its partners. - Please do not spam or submit comments that use copyright materials, hearsay or are based on reports where the supposed fact or quote is not a matter of public knowledge are also not permitted.