So Sir Jeremy Greenstock says Tony Blair would have preferred a peaceful outcome to the Iraq crisis in early 2003 (Britain was ‘second-class’ partner in Iraq war, 2 November)?

What, then, to make of the 2009 Observer report about a 31 January 2003 memo – copied to Greenstock – of a private meeting between George Bush and Blair which “confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action”.

According to the report, “Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan ‘to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover’”. Then, if Iraqi forces fired at the planes, it would put Saddam Hussein in breach of UN resolutions.

“The memo notes there had been a shift in the two men’s thinking on Iraq by late January 2003 and that preparing for war was now their priority,” the report concludes.

Ian Sinclair

Author of The March That Shook Blair: An Oral History of 15 February 2003

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