Iraq war inquiry opens in London

25 Nov 2009, 6:03 am   -   Source: AAP
0 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
0

Britain and the US were at odds over whether to overthrow Saddam Hussein two years before the pair teamed up to invade Iraq in 2003.

RELATED

Britain and the US were at odds over whether to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein two years before the pair teamed up to invade Iraq in 2003, an inquiry has heard.

Former senior British military and government officials told the first public hearings of Britain's latest Iraq war inquiry that while talks were under way in the US in 2001 about regime change, the UK preferred to toughen up UN sanctions against Iraq in an attempt to control Saddam.

At the time, President George Bush had just come to power and both Britain and US were reviewing their Iraq policies because they were struggling to contain Saddam and his ambitions to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Sir William Patey, the then head of the Foreign Office's Middle East department, said although Britain was aware that parts of the Bush administration were talking about regime change in Iraq, Britain had no policy to get rid of Saddam.

"In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it," he told the inquiry.

"Our policy was to stay away from that end of the spectrum.

"I think later on ...(the Foreign Office tried to) signal that we didn't think Saddam was a good thing and it would be great if he went but we didn't have an explicit policy for trying to get rid of him."

Sir Peter Ricketts, who chaired Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001, told the inquiry how the then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had written a document warning "nothing will change" until Saddam was gone.

But he said most of the talk in Washington about regime change was focused on arming Iraqi opposition parties to overthrow Saddam.

"I was certainly never aware of anyone in the British government at that point promoting or supporting active measures to achieve regime change," he said.

Simon Webb, a former Ministry of Defence policy director, said he was at a meeting in Washington in March 2001 when regime change was discussed but no firm proposition was ever put to the British by the Americans.

He wrote about the discussion in notes from the meeting but said: "The dog didn't bark."

The latest inquiry into the Iraq war is designed to examine why Britain joined the US-led invasion in 2003 and look at whether it was even legal.

In his opening statement to the first day of public hearings in London on Tuesday, inquiry head Sir John Chilcot insisted he would not hold back on criticising the government or anyone else.

He said while his investigation into why Britain joined the 2003 Iraq invasion was not a trial, it would be "thorough, rigorous, fair and frank".

"We cannot determine guilt or innocence," he said.

"Only a court can do that.

"But I make a commitment here that once we get to our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms where they are warranted."

Chilcot's comments come after many critics of the war have expressed concerns that the inquiry will be a "whitewash".

The five committee members have been hand-picked by the government and none have any legal experience.

The choice of Chilcot to lead the inquiry has been questioned because of his strong links to Britain's establishment.

Senior judicial figures also believe the inquiry is incapable of investigating whether the war was legal because such a question is beyond the panel's competence.

"The truth of the matter is, if the inquiry was going to express a view with any kind of authority on the question of legality, it would need a legal member and quite a senior one," one senior judge, who did not want to be named, told The Guardian newspaper.

"There simply is not the political pressure to explore the question of legality - they have not asked because they don't want the answer."

A series of top-level government, military and intelligence officials are due to give evidence in the first few weeks of the inquiry, which will not report until well after the general election expected in mid-2010.

Former prime minister Tony Blair, whose decision to send troops to Iraq was widely condemned by the British public, is expected to give evidence in early 2010.

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.