- The Guardian, Monday 14 December 2009
It would seem from Tony Blair's new interview (Blair: I would have invaded Iraq anyway, 12 December) that he is now claiming he was convinced of the need to remove Saddam Hussein for many reasons, of which WMD was just the easiest to make a convincing case. There are at least two problems with this.
First, he has to explain why, right up to the outbreak of war, he said that Saddam could remain secure in Baghdad if only he would disarm, and even after this that the war was fought to disarm Iraq and not for regime change.
Secondly, there is evidence that the WMD threat was invented as an excuse. Sir Christopher Meyer had written in March 2002 that he had told the US's Paul Wolfowitz that we "backed regime change but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN security council resolutions." The Daily Telegraph, when this was leaked to the paper, described it as "giving the allies an excuse for war". The British UN diplomat Carne Ross has said that Britain privately assessed that Iraq had no significant WMD but "what had changed was the government's determination to present available evidence in a different light". Some of that job was of course passed to the political appointees Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell in the dossier which was so discredited in the Hutton and Butler inquiries.
Unfortunately, the Chilcot inquiry has not asked its witnesses about such evidence that the WMD story went beyond cock-up to conspiracy. I have sent some of this evidence to them, and would like the world to know that they have it.
Rob Wall
Bedford
• Boxed in by years of the insistent drip of truth on the dynamic behind his decision to invade Iraq, Tony Blair has finally conceded that he would have removed Saddam even if there had been no evidence of WMD. It seems, then, that we went to war because Blair is under the misapprehension that British general elections give the winner a mandate to make international law on the fly, and to be the world's policeman, judge, jury and jailer. Or perhaps he believes that if Robert Mugabe, say, had considered Britain to be a destabilising influence a few years back, he would have been fully entitled to remove Blair and his cabinet by force. So generous of Blair to "sympathise" with those unsophisticates who thought and think he made a mistake.
Mike Brecher
London
• You may have wanted Blair to say he "would have invaded Iraq anyway". But your job is to report what he did in fact say (in response to the question would he still have "gone on" if he'd thought there were no WMDs): "I would still have thought it right to remove him."
This is a long way from saying he'd have invaded. Thinking something right is not the same as taking action. Especially when he followed it up by saying "obviously you would have had to use different arguments about the nature of the threat". How else can you interpret this other than as an acknowledgment that the desire for regime change was not sufficient grounds for invasion?
Ronnie Paris
London
• I see that Blair says he "would have found a way to justify the war". He has had several years to think about it; why has he still not done it?
Jim Waight
Hertford
• The headlines give the game away (Blair: I would have invaded Iraq anyway; Shell wins rights over vast Iraqi oilfield as foreign firms get access; both 12 December).
Sebastian Kraemer
London
• So John Prescott now wonders "how did I go along [with it]?" (Prescott joins doubters over 2003 invasion, 10 December). Well perhaps he could begin to make amends by refusing to be bamboozled into believing that Iran is seeking to produce WMDs. If he and those who think like him are duped yet again then another war will follow, and another apology for failing to find the evidence.
John Harvey
Rodmell, East Sussex