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Key questions facing Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry

by Staff Writers
London (AFP) Jan 28, 2010
Former British prime minister Tony Blair makes his long-awaited appearance at the public inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war on Friday. These are some of the key questions he is likely to face:

Question: When did he commit Britain to military action against Iraq?

The inquiry heard the United States was thinking seriously about military action in 2002, but it is unclear when Blair pledged Britain's support.

Christopher Meyer, who was Britain's ambassador to the United States at the time, told the inquiry Blair gave his backing to then US president George W. Bush at a meeting in Texas in April 2002.

Blair's chief of staff at the time, Jonathan Powell, and his former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, both denied this.

However, Campbell reported seeing private notes sent by Blair to Bush during 2002 indicating Britain would "be there" with the US on military action.

Question: Was he determined to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, regardless of the reasoning for war?

The justification for the invasion was Saddam's defiance of UN resolutions concerning its weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

They were never found, but Blair told the BBC last month: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. Obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat."

The officials appearing before the inquiry made no secret of their dislike of Saddam but said their desire to see him gone was not the same as having a policy objective of removing him.

However, the foreign secretary at the time of the war, Jack Straw -- who said such an objective would be "unlawful" -- suggested Blair may have had a different view.

Question: Was the intelligence about Iraq's WMD amended to make the case for war?

A dossier about Iraq in September 2002 included a foreword by Blair which said the intelligence had established "beyond doubt" that Saddam was producing chemical and biological weapons, and was trying to develop nuclear weapons.

But the inquiry has heard the intelligence coming out of Iraq was patchy.

Blair's foreword also claimed that some of these weapons would be ready "within 45 minutes of an order to use them".

Senior government officials have since admitted that this claim only ever referred to battlefield weapons, not WMD. Straw said this was an "error".

However, many expressed the strong belief that Saddam had WMD, based on his past behaviour including using chemical weapons on his own people.

Question: Was the attorney general pressured into declaring military action legal?

Many critics of the war in Britain believe the government's top legal adviser at the time, former attorney general Peter Goldsmith, was pressured into giving his approval for military action.

This perception was reinforced this week when the Foreign Office's two top legal advisers at the time told the inquiry they believed the war was illegal.

In his testimony Wednesday, Goldsmith admitted he initially had doubts that UN Security Council Resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, was enough to justify invading Iraq, and believed a second resolution was needed.

However, he said he changed his mind after researching the 1441 negotiations -- and denied he had faced any political pressure.

Question: How well were British troops prepared for the invasion?

Then defence secretary Geoff Hoon complained to the inquiry that Blair refused to allow active preparations for the war until just five months before the invasion because he did not want to undermine the UN negotiations.

As a result, some equipment including desert combat fatigues and desert boots was ordered too late to arrive on the frontline in time.

Hoon also said the armed forces had been underfunded for years before 2003, criticism which Gordon Brown, then finance minister and currently prime minister, will have to answer when he appears before the inquiry.



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