Read the memo

IT WAS alleged yesterday that Tony Blair had decided on war with Iraq nearly a year before the invasion, according to leaked Downing Street documents.

The leak revealed what appeared to be minuted war preparations at the highest level of government in July 2002, months before Mr Blair received parliamentary approval for military action.However, Admiral Sir Michael (now Lord) Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff at the time, told The Times that no decision for war had been taken at that stage.

Military sources admitted that contingency planning for an invasion of Iraq had begun in May 2002, a month after Mr Blair returned from a meeting with President Bush in America about possible action against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Military and intelligence officials said they were not given carte blanche to prepare for war until “much later in the year”.

Lord Boyce said: “It would have been irresponsible not to have started making contingency preparations, but it was all done on a what-if basis.We were not in any sense hell-bent on war. The main thing was the diplomatic effort.”

Lord Boyce spoke out after Downing Street minutes, marked “Secret and Strictly Personal — UK eyes only”, detailing a meeting about Saddam Hussein in July 2002, were leaked to The Sunday Times. The minutes referred to a meeting between Mr Blair and other key figures, including Lord Boyce, Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Goldsmith QC, the Attorney-General, and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary.

The minutes read: “This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.”

At that stage, Mr Straw’s view was that the case for war was “thin”, and Lord Goldsmith was also giving warning of doubts about the legality of going to war. Mr Blair is recorded as having replied: “If the political context was right, people would support regime change.”

Mr Straw came up with a possible solution. “We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN inspectors hunting for weapons of mass destruction,” he said. If Saddam refused, Mr Straw argued, “this would help us with the legal justification for the use of force”.

In April 2002, Mr Straw told MPs that no decisions about military action were likely to be made “for some time”.

A leaked Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing paper prepared for the July meeting made clear that Mr Blair told Mr Bush in April 2002 that Britain would support the US militarily to bring about Saddam’s downfall — although, on July 17, the Prime Minister told MPs: “No decisions have yet been made.”

A serving Whitehall official said it was wrong to suggest that final decisions had been taken in the early summer of 2002, even if the Prime Minister had offered to support the US. The official recalled that in 1998 America and Britain were “literally an hour away” from beginning airstrikes after Saddam refused to co-operate with UN inspectors. “But the bombing was called off after Saddam suddenly agreed to let the inspectors do their work.”

Lord Boyce backed up the official’s claim that final decisions had not been made until much later in 2002. “We were told we had to wait for the diplomatic process to be exhausted and that Blair hadn’t made up his mind,” he said.“The doubts about Britain’s involvement went right up till the evening of the vote in the House of Commons a few days before the invasion.”

US doubts about Britain’s participation remained so strong until the last moment that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, declared that the US would go it alone if necessary.

THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FACES

Downing Street memo of Prime Minister’s meeting on Iraq, July 23, 2002

Conclusions of the Iraq meeting: “We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action . . . CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options”

Tony Blair, July 16, 2002, replying to questions on preparing for military action against Iraq: “No, there are no decisions which have been taken about military action”

July 25, press conference: “I actually think we are all getting a bit ahead of ourselves on the issue of Iraq. As I have said before, action is not imminent; we are not at the point of decision”

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