Iraq inquiry told 'there was no smoking gun'
Iraq inquiry told 'there was no smoking gun'
Thursday, 26, Nov 2009 05:00
By Richard James.
The former UK ambassador to Washington has admitted how military preparations ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq undermined UN weapons inspections.
Giving evidence on the third day of public sessions at the Iraq inquiry, Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2003, admitted the western allies were set to go to war regardless of Hans Blix's findings.
He told the five-member committee on Thursday that by the autumn 2002 a situation had arisen whereby it was impossible to synchronise the military and inspection timetables.
"The American military had been given instructions to prepare for war," he said.
"Initially it was 'we want you ready by January'. There was a lot of confusion inside the American military establishment about the size of the force, they wanted to bring an army down from Germany and pass it through Turkey. So January was never realistic and in the end it went back to March.
"All that said, when you looked at the timetable for the inspections, it was impossible to see how [Mr] Blix could bring the process to a conclusion, for better or for worse, by March."
Sir Christopher said due to the timescale involved in the military preparations, the inspections had been compromised in the search for the elusive weapons of mass destruction.
He admitted the United Nations security council resolution 1441, which called in Saddam Hussein to comply with disarmament obligations, had been turned "on its head" as a result.
"Because 1441 had been a challenge to Saddam Hussein, agreed unanimously, to prove his innocence," he explained.
"But because you could not synchronise the programmes, somehow or other, programme, preparation of war, inspections, you had to short-circuit the inspection process by finding the notorious smoking gun.
"And suddenly, because of that, the unforgiving nature of the military timetable, we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun, which was another way of saying "it's not that Saddam has to prove that he's innocent, we've now bloody well got to try and prove that he's guilty'.
"And we - the Americans, the British - have never really recovered from that because of course there was no smoking gun."
The inquiry will continue to take evidence in public for a series of high profile figures, including military commanders and ministers, over the coming months culminating in the appearance of former prime minister Tony Blair sometime in the new year.