Former British prime minister Tony Blair is to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry next week, it was announced today.
Mr Blair will give a full day of evidence to the inquiry in London on Friday, January 29th.
A weekend poll found almost a quarter (23 per cent) of voters believed Mr Blair deliberately misled MPs over the Iraq war and should face war crimes charges.
One of his closest advisers appeared before the inquiry today. Jonathan Powell, the No 10 chief of staff, isclosed that Mr Blair wrote to former US president George Bush 11 months before the invasion of Iraq, warning him of the need to “move quickly” if it came to military action.
However, he strongly denied that Mr Blair had given an “undertaking signed in blood” when he met Mr Bush at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002 that if it came to war Britain would “be there”.
He said that in his note to Mr Bush following the meeting, Mr Blair was trying to establish what would be a “sensible basis” for them to “go ahead” if it came to military action.
“What he was talking about was the danger of unintended consequences. Suppose it became militarily tricky, Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties, the Iraqis feeling ambivalent about being invaded,” said Mr Powell, apparently reading directly from the note.
“If we move quickly, everyone will be our friend. If we don’t and they haven’t been bound in beforehand, recriminations will start fast.”
He strongly denied the suggestion by the former ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, that Mr Blair and Mr Bush had struck an agreement “signed in blood” to go to war. “There was not an undertaking in blood to go to war with Iraq. There was no firm decision to go to war.”
While Mr Blair had argued that they needed to go to the United Nations before taking any action, Mr Powell said they could not have simply ignored US arguments for “regime change” in Iraq if they wanted to influence American policy.
“If you are going to persuade people to take a particular course you need to convince them you are with them. You cannot go in and say ‘By the way we are having nothing to do with this but you go ahead and we think you should do it that way’. Your advice is likely to be treated very sceptically,” he said.
He said that British officials had even received calls from their US counterparts urging them to intervene with Mr Bush so that he did not act unilaterally.
Mr Powell also told the inquiry Mr Blair told Attorney General Lord Goldsmith that he must give a “definitive” decision one way or the other on whether the invasion of Iraq was legal
Mr Powell denied an attempt was made to “bully” Lord Goldsmith into authorising the war. However he told the inquiry it was made clear Lord Goldsmith could not simply sit on the fence.
On Thursday, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who as foreign secretary was the second most involved minister after Mr Blair, will appear before the panel.
PA