Britain rushed to invade Iraq

A former British diplomat says government did not tried hard enough to find an alternative to the military action to deal with Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Carne Ross, who served as first secretary at the UK's mission to UN between 1997 and 2002, told the Iraq war inquiry on Monday that Britain's pre-invasion containment policy ruled that the government considers sanctions and other measures before leaping to a military solution.

He said no "significant intelligence" backed up the claims that Iraq was armed with weapons of mass destruction but officials opposing a military campaign there were "very beleaguered".

Ross resigned from the Diplomatic Service in 2004 to protest the invasion of Iraq citing serious blunders by the British government in the use of the intelligence and its failure to use possible diplomatic options.

At the inquiry session, Ross made it clear that those who supported the use of economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and controlling of no-fly zones in Iraq in 2001 were "under pressure".

He said though making sanctions work was "politically difficult" it was "doable" but Washington and London offered "very little senior support" to the UN mission in that regard.

Ross added Saddam regime's illegal oil exports through Turkey and Syria could be hindered to pressure Iraq by cutting its vital income but that was an "available option to us, as a government, that we never took".

"It is astonishing to me that neither the US nor UK did anything about Saddam's illegal bank accounts which we knew to exist in Jordan" he said, "It was far less effort than any subsequent military effort was made to topple Saddam".

Also on the threats posed by Saddam, Ross said "we continued to believe Iraq was certainly pursuing WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programmes […] but we had no significant intelligence".

He said the intelligence documents prepared by the government to justify its attack on Iraq "converted" the "uncertain and patchy" looks of the reports into a "positive" base for military action.

Thousands of Secret Documents Are 'Core' of U.K. Iraq Inquiry

Tens of thousands of secret documents form the core of the ongoing inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman revealed on Monday—far more than previously thought.
The inquiry also hinted that such documents showed British officials knew George Bush intended to invade Iraq even if they complied with the U.N. weapons inspections.

In a statement marking the end of a month of public testimonies by senior decision-makers broadcast live on the Web, inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcott said that secret documents allowed the panel to see what really went on.

“They allow us to shine a bright light into seldom-seen corners of the government machine, revealing what really went on behind the scenes, before, during, and after the Iraq conflict,” said Sir John.

The inquiry team will examine the documents over the next few months said Sir John, allowing the panel “to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.”

After the examination of the documents, more of which he emphasized were still being received every week, the inquiry team would be in a position to decide who else to interview.

“We have no reason to believe that any material is being deliberately withheld,” said Sir John, emphasizing that access to documents is unrestricted.

The statement by Sir John followed the second quizzing of the foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion, Jack Straw.
One exchange hinted that the panel had access to secret documents revealing that George Bush planned to attack Iraq even if Iraq complied with inspectors and was in compliance with crucial U.N. resolution 1441.

Sir Lawrence Freedman had asked Mr. Straw, “Was there any point where [Colin] Powell said to you that, even if Iraq complied, President Bush had already made a decision that he intended to go to war?”

When Mr. Straw said this was not the case, “to the best of my recollection,” and talked more broadly around the question, Sir Lawrence pressed him a few times on the issue.

Sir Lawrence Freedman said, "I was going to suggest you might want to look through your conversations and check."

“I will go through the records, because I think you are trying to tell me something,” said Mr. Straw.

Mr. Straw also said he had no recollection of Claire Short’s accusation that she had been “jeered at” by members of the Cabinet when she challenged the legality of the invasion. “This was a very serious Cabinet meeting. People weren't, as I recall, anyway, going off with that kind of behavior. We all understood the gravity of the decision,” she said. Short resigned as International Development secretary two months after the invasion of Iraq, and has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Blair and the Iraq war.

Mr. Straw had denied that the Cabinet discussion on the attorney general's advice on the legality of invasion had been blocked, and said that there was no way the members of Cabinet could be unaware of the finely balanced nature of the legal argument, given its wide attention in the media.

He said that Cabinet comprised strong-minded people.

"None of them were wilting violets; their judgment was that it was not necessary to go into the process by which Peter Goldsmith came to his view. I don't recall Cabinet as a whole receiving legal advice on the matter," said Mr Straw. "All [the Cabinet] wanted to know was: is it lawful or is it not lawful?" What was required in the end was "essentially a yes or no decision" from the attorney general, he added.

Mr. Straw stoutly defended his decision not to act on the advice of the Foreign Office legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood. “The legal advice he offered, frankly, was contradictory and I think I was entitled to raise that,” he said.

Sir John said that the inquiry hoped to meet with veterans from the Iraq war later this year, as well as with more top officials from the Bush administration.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair told Fox news on Monday that the succession of probes into the invasion reflected our human inability to agree or disagree.

"There's always got to be a scandal as to why you hold your view. There's got to be some conspiracy behind it, some great deceit that's gone on, and people just find it hard to understand that it's possible for people to have different points of view and hold them … for genuine reasons. There's a continual desire to sort of uncover some great conspiracy, when actually there's a decision at the heart of it."

Iraq and Afghanistan wearing down the military, MPs warn

Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are leaving the armed forces ill equipped to undertake any new operations, MPs have warned.

Britain's forces need a period of "effective recuperation" after operating at a rate well above official planning assumptions, a report by the Commons defence committee says today. "The MoD was unable to tell us how long it would take before the armed forces return to satisfactory levels of readiness", it says.

It describes how RAF pilots are unable to train because aircraft are tied up on operations, the navy has too many commitments and major exercises are having to be cancelled.

The report quotes Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, a senior commander, as saying that his fellow senior officers believed the army needed to expand from about 102,000 troops to 112,000 to meet demand.

The MPs say current defence planning assumptions – that the forces are supposed to be resourced to maintain one enduring medium-scale operation and one small-scale operation – are "out of step with what is happening in reality". The army has suffered particularly, working at "full stretch" with training exercises cancelled and the time between tours of duty cut. "Given the high tempo of operations over the last eight years it is not surprising that some senior army officers think there needs to be a bigger army."

The MPs point out that the other armed services are also affected. The navy has seen essential equipment – such as the replacement for the Type 23 frigate – delayed and the report questions whether it can continue with its commitments around the world. The RAF has a shortage of aircraft for routine training because of the number of its fighter jets and helicopters committed on operations overseas.

The report warns that any cuts in an emergency "stringency budget" after the next election could make the strategic defence review (SDR), promised by all the main parties, undeliverable.

"The thinking of easier times – when public spending on health, education and social security was increased by much more than that on defence – must not be allowed to continue into these troubled times," the report says.

Meanwhile the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, has told the committee that the plan to renew the Trident nuclear missile project will be excluded from the SDR due to be set up after the general election.

The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, said the report "exposes the damage that has been done across the armed forces by Labour's refusal to hold a proper review for over a decade".

"It is clear that radical reform is needed to ensure that our armed forces are best configured to defend British interests and that our procurement programme gets our troops what they need, when they need it," he said.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, said war in Iraq and Afghanistan had taken its toll on troops and echoed Lamb's call for a boost to land forces.

"There is quite a strong argument to say that our land forces are not large enough, particularly units that may have done two or three tours in Iraq and are now on a second or third tour in Afghanistan," he told GMTV. "Inevitably and sadly we have taken a number of casualties and people are tired. So those units need to be stronger. If they were 10% or 15% stronger they would be more resilient to casualties and if people become ill or injured."

South London groups slam Iraq inquiry

THE Iraq War inquiry is “powerless and pointless”, according to South London campaign groups.
Anti-war protesters have hit out at the Chilcot Enquiry because it doesn’t have the power to charge former Prime Minister Tony Blair as a war criminal.
Colin Wilson, of Stop the War Lambeth, said: “This inquiry is completely pointless.
"It has absolutely no power to challenge Blair on the terms in which he should be tried.
“Tony Blair should face legal proceeding at the International Court in The Hague.
"He has broken international law and therefore should be tried as a war criminal.”
The Chilcott Inquiry was launched last July 30 to identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict.
A report of the findings will be published this summer and its content debated in Parliament.
Campaigners also disputed Blair’s claim that the world was safer without Saddam Hussein.
Wandsworth Stop The War chairman John Clossick, who heckled Blair as he left the inquiry held at the QEII Conference Centre in London last Friday, said: “Blair said that if we had not removed Saddam in 2003 the world would be much more dangerous.
“But the Iraq War has turned virtually every country in the Middle East into a hot bed of terrorist activity.
“It has made it easy for militant groups to recruit young Muslims.
“Blair and Bush have increased the threat of global terrorism.”
But Mr Blair was unrepentant after being summoned last week, telling the inquiry panel he was right to go to war.
He said: “I have not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein. I think he was a monster.
"I think he threatened not just a region but the world.”
Prime Minster Gordon Brown is due to give evidence at the inquiry next month.