Iraq Inquiry unlikely to rule that Blair lied to British ahead of war

ANALYSIS:Tony Blair lives with his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 every day, but says he has no regrets and nothing for which to apologise, writes MARK HENNESSY

SITTING JUST feet away from former British prime minister Tony Blair shortly before 5pm last evening, Lawrence Freedman, one of the members of the Iraq Inquiry, read out the Iraq death toll for each January in the years after the British and Americans invaded Iraq.

It was a chilling moment. Blair, who had, bar some opening nervousness in the first hour of his marathon session before the inquiry, been confident and often dogmatic throughout, visibly paled, while the attitude of the majority in the small public gallery in the Queen Elizabeth Centre near the Houses of Parliament bristled towards the former Labour leader.

Given a clear indication that he could face an order to return before the inquiry, Blair has been given reason to worry about the findings the inquiry will make in its final report later this year, going on the often blunt language most of its members expressed in their concluding remarks to him before he left.

Freedman focused on “often cavalier” postwar planning; John Chilcot referred to the fact that important papers were not circulated to all members of the cabinet readily; Baroness Usha Prashar quoted former attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith’s belief that his less-than-supportive legal opinions at the time were not welcome.

Asking Blair whether he believed it had all been worthwhile, Chilcot quoted an Iraqi who had told him the price ordinary Iraqis had paid for the invasion had been high, given the “inept nature” of the postwar reconstruction attempts. In the establishment world in which all of the members of the inquiry live, such remarks hold danger for Blair and his legacy.

However, the inquiry members are unlikely to rule that Blair lied to the British people before the war began about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, even though none were later found, because it was clear from the six hours of testimony yesterday that Blair did believe it, utterly.

On this point, as on so many others, he was unrepentant: “This isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It’s a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes, or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?”

He warned that he and George Bush were faced with that decision in 2003, but world leaders of today and in the future may well find themselves faced with similarly stark choices in the world bequeathed by the September 11th attacks, where so-called rogue states and terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda have the potential to combine, to terrifying effect.

The Iraq Survey Group, which trawled Iraq exhaustively after the invasion in search of weapons of mass destruction did not find any, he acknowledged, but it did find that Saddam had the capacity, the intent and the technical know-how to begin his programme anew, once the equipment shortages forced on him by the UN sanctions regime fell away as the curbs weakened.

Put simply, the international community, he argued, would have had to deal with Saddam sooner or later: there was never any chance “that he would do a Gadafy” and give up his nuclear ambitions, in return for being brought into the international fold. The international community might not have been able to tackle him at another time when it needed to, because the unity necessary might not then have existed.

For months, the Iraq Inquiry has been the target for much abuse from the British press and many in the political field, who have complained that its questioning has been weak and deferential, though it can be strongly argued that the slow, deliberate manner in which it has gone about its business is proving successful.

Given the bitterness that still surrounds the Iraq War in the United Kingdom, which was briefly on display in the hearing room until Chilcot barked at offenders to be quiet, he and his colleagues will not have performed adequately until they place a gallows on St Stephen’s Green across the road from the Houses for Parliament.

However, they should not be criticised for things that they cannot do.

On his entry into the hearing room just after 9.30am yesterday, Blair was undeniably nervous and keyed-up, awkwardly grasping a bottle of water, while he moved his files around to prepare for a session that could set the final seal on the issue that will, undoubtedly, define his 10 years at the helm in Downing Street.

However, he very quickly stumbled into the issue of that interview with ITV’s Fern Britton, which was broadcast in December during a Sunday programme on religious beliefs.

In it, he said he would have believed it right to get rid of Saddam even if he had known beforehand that the Iraqi dictator did not have WMDs.

Pointing out that he had never used the phrase “regime change”, Mr Blair proceeded to give a somewhat incoherent and less-than-understandable statement, saying that, of course, “you would not describe the nature of the threat in the same way if you knew then what you know now”. The answer failed in any way to clarify the core point made in the Britton interview.

Before his appearance, much attention had been paid to how he would explain his meeting with Bush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, and whether he had “signed in blood” a deal to go to war with the Americans, as it was colourfully described by the former British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Meyer. It must be remembered that Meyer was not in the room, but 30 miles away.

In the event, this issue did not trouble Blair in the slightest. Nothing had been decided at Crawford other than that the two leaders decided that Saddam, after 10 years of persistent breaches of UN resolutions, had to be faced down this time. The means by which that would happen were for another day, he told the inquiry.

On the issue of the legality of the war, Blair equally managed not to make his situation worse, though it is clear that the inquiry team is extremely doubtful about the manner in which cabinet operated at this time, and the relationship, or the apparent lack of one for so many months at crucial times, between the attorney general and Blair.

British military forces could have been forced to come home from forward bases in Kuwait at the very last moment if Lord Goldsmith, who only declared the invasion legal days before it began, had issued a contrary verdict, said inquiry member and former ambassador Sir Roderick Lyne – who opposed the war when he served in the foreign office. Surely it would have been better to have asked him earlier, he said pointedly.

Implying that he had had a better understanding of the powers granted under UN resolution 1441 than his attorney general, Blair dismissed the point, saying that a second United Nations resolution was politically preferable, but not legally necessary, and that the AG had finally come around to that opinion, with some help.

Undoubtedly, Blair was weakest on the issue of what happened after the invasion, saying that a lot of planning had been carried out, but that they had never thought the entire Iraqi civil administration would be non-existent by the time Baghdad had fallen. “We prepared for what we thought was likely to happen,” he told the inquiry.

However, he emphasised repeatedly “that it wasn’t us who were doing the killing”, but rather insurgents fomented by al-Qaeda and Iran, which he, again and again, criticised for being a source of instability in the region – a danger that he believes clearly will have to be faced down by the international community in the years to come.

In 2003, it was he who had to make the tough call, Blair is saying.

Tomorrow, it will be someone else.

Mark Hennessy is London Editor