Iraq inquiry: British officials ruled against 'illegal' ousting of Saddam



British officials considered a plan to topple Saddam Hussein two years before the Iraq War but ruled it would be illegal just months before Tony Blair signed up for the American invasion.



Senior diplomat Sir William Patey told the first day of the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 invasion that Britain looked at a proposal for regime change in Iraq in late 2001.

It was a response to growing 'drum beats' for war in Iraq coming from the U.S., the inquiry heard.



Protesters posing as Tony Blair, George Bush and Gordon Brown outside the inquiry. Their hands were bloodied and they held dollar bills to signify their belief that the Iraq invasion was over oil

But the Foreign Office 'options paper' concluded there was 'no legal basis' for ousting the dictator.

It warned that Britain should 'keep a long way from the regime-change end of the spectrum'.



Details of the paper prove that British officials were considering the possibility of removing the Iraqi dictator much earlier than has previously been admitted.



Tony Blair denied that regime change was British policy until the final days before the invasion.

Chairman John Chilcot (background, 3rd L) speaking during the first day of the Iraq Inquiry in central London

But the revelation that Whitehall officials regarded targeting Saddam as unlawful will strengthen the criticism that Mr Blair caved in to the American desire for war and rode roughshod over international law. The details emerged on the first day of the hearings of the Chilcot Inquiry, set up to look into the war, its build-up and aftermath.

Sir William, who was then head of the Middle East Section at the Foreign Office, revealed that in early 2001 the Foreign Office drew up a policy paper called 'A Contract with the Iraqi People' which set out what a 'post-Saddam' Iraq might look like.

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In secret meetings in Washington even before the 9/11 attacks, Bush administration officials told their British counterparts they wanted to oust the Iraqi dictator.

Sir William, now ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said: 'In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that.'

Later that year, after the 9/11 attacks, Sir William secretly drew up a second options paper because the Americans had made clear a conflict was possible.

He said: 'We had at the end the regime change option - which was dismissed at the time as having no basis in law. It was very much an internal paper. We didn't go into how to achieve regime change.'

Sir Roderic Lyne was a special advisor to BP Sir Lawrence Freedman is a professor of war studies at King's College

Sir Martin Gilbert once compared Blair and Bush to Churchill and Roosevelt Baroness Usha Prasha is a cross bench member of the House of Lords

On three separate occasions, Sir William said that the view in Whitehall was that 'there was no legal basis for' regime change.

That view was echoed by Sir Peter Ricketts, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and now chief mandarin at the Foreign Office.

He said: 'Regime change in 2001 was something that we thought there could be no legal basis for.'

Just a few months later - in March 2002 - Mr Blair apparently pledged to George W. Bush that he would support a U.S. invasion during a summit at his Texas ranch.

Sir William further undermined Mr Blair's justification for war, saying that Saddam was not seen as 'an immediate threat' and it would have taken 'a few years' before he became a serious danger to the West.

By early 2003 Downing Street's 'dodgy dossier' was claiming that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be deployed against British targets in Cyprus within 45 minutes. The invasion took place on March 20 that year.

Yesterday's testimony reinforces the widely held view that Mr Blair arranged the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to suit his political decision to back Mr Bush.

International lawyers have long argued that the war was illegal and controversy has raged over the fact that the Government's legal advice appeared to change in the run up to war.

The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith eventually claimed the war was legal because Saddam Hussein was in breach of UN resolutions - despite Mr Blair's failure to secure a resolution explicitly endorsing war.

While the atmosphere was genteel inside the inquiry room, outside emotions were a little more evident. Protesters in Tony Blair and George Bush masks, holding handfuls of cash smeared with fake blood, gathered in the street outside the QEII centre opposite Westminster Abbey.

Some of the families of the 179 British servicemen and women killed in the conflict spoke of their grief while others watched grimly as the mandarins gave evidence.

BUT THERE WON'T BE A VERDICT UNTIL 2011

The Iraq War inquiry is not likely to report until 2011 and will not find anyone guilty when it does.

Chairman Sir John Chilcot revealed yesterday that the inquiry is now expected to drag on several months longer than expected.

He said he and his committee will try to finish by the end of next year. But he warned that the need to be thorough could see it drag on into 2011.

'I hope people will bear with us,' he said.

Sir John is not likely to deliver his verdict on what is widely regarded as Labour's greatest foreign policy disaster until long after the party may have been driven from office.

He used his opening statement on the first day of hearings to confirm that no one will be blamed for the war. 'We are not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry; and our processes will reflect that difference,' he said.



'No-one is on trial. We cannot determine guilt or innocence. 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.'

Sir John will seek immunity from prosecution for witnesses who might incriminate themselves. But no one will be on oath - instead they will sign a pledge that they have told the truth.

Sir John explicitly rejected a report yesterday that he would not be able to rule on the legality of the war because his team lacks top level legal advice.

He said the committee would 'be hearing about the legal basis for military action' in 'the New Year'.