A rchive Date
[ 17-07-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Britain ]
|
[Secrets Of The Allies
Leaks from London: A series of British memos reveals where Blair's advisers agreed with the Bush administration - and where they didn't - on Iraq.
By John Barry and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
June 27 issue - On the question of Iraq, George W. Bush and Tony Blair have always projected an image of the perfect political marriage - two statesmen equally determined to see the struggle through to the end. Despite the painstaking public show of unity, however, the private wartime relationship between the United States and Britain has not been nearly so smooth.
A cache of secret British government memos, obtained by British journalist Michael Smith and recently spread around the Internet, depict the quiet diplomatic struggle between the two governments leading up to the war. In them, senior Blair aides expressed early concerns that Bush's blueprint for the Iraq invasion was hastily conceived, overly optimistic and legally shaky. British officials won't comment on the content of the memos. But they haven't disputed their authenticity, and some may be glad they leaked: for the most part, the memos show that the Brits were presciently worried about what could go wrong in the war and its aftermath.
One of the papers, the "Downing Street Memo," has caused the biggest stir. The memo is the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top advisers. In it, Richard Dearlove, head of the British foreign - intelligence service M.I.6, reported on a trip to Washington. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.
But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
The NSC had no patience with the UN route... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath..." Antiwar activists have seized on the memo as a smoking gun, saying it proves Bush cooked intel - and that he had already decided to attack Iraq at the same time he was insisting he would use force only as a last resort.
But taken together, the papers - seven in all - tell a more complicated story. Bush's team may have decided early on that Saddam had WMD stockpiles, but the Brits thought so, too.
Blair and his advisers also seemed to agree that Saddam should be removed. Their concern was that the Americans were heading to war in the wrong way. Blair and his aides believed, though, that by going along with Bush from the start, Blair would be able to influence the way the war was planned and carried out.
As early as March 22, 2002, a senior British diplomat advised Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: "By sharing Bush's broad objective the Prime Minister can... help Bush make good decisions by telling him things his own machine probably isn't." As the memos show, the adviser was largely mistaken. Blair's aides believed it would be difficult to justify going to war based on Saddam's suspected stockpiles of WMD alone, or his supposed links to Al Qaeda.
In a March 8 "options paper," Britain's Cabinet Office wrote that sanctions against Iraq had "effectively frozen" Saddam's nuclear program, and hindered his biological - weapons efforts. Saddam, it added, "has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbours." The paper maintained Iraq was continuing to develop WMD, but also noted that "our intelligence is poor" on that point.
The brief's authors concluded "there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD." What's more, they found that "there is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with international terrorism." Given that, Blair's advisers wrote, "There is therefore no justification for action against Iraq based on action in self defence..."
But by summer 2002, some in Blair's inner circle had concluded Bush was beyond British influence.
A July 21 paper recounts that, during a spring meeting with Bush at the president's Crawford ranch, Blair had told the president he would "support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met." Blair wanted Bush to make a serious effort to "construct a coalition" and "exhaust" the efforts of U.N. weapons inspectors. The Brits no longer believed Bush would meet those conditions, however: "... we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support," the paper says.
Even so, Blair stuck close to Bush.
The Brits held out hope that they would play a larger role in rebuilding Iraq. Instead, they found themselves marginalized, with top posts in Baghdad going to Bush loyalists instead of British hands with years of field experience. Some British officials privately believe they are still regarded as junior partners - nice to have around, as long as they keep their mouths shut.
Blair and his team have largely hidden any discontent they may feel. Yet, as the Iraqi insurgency intensifies, small cracks are beginning to appear.
The unpopularity of the war in the U.K. has politically damaged Blair, whose Labour Party lost 95 seats in Parliament in the recent election. British military commanders have begun floating the possibility of shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.
That doesn't mean the prime minister is looking to cut and run. "Blair is a believer," says a senior British government official who, by Whitehall custom, spoke anonymously. "He caught on to Bush's freedom and democracy agenda right away, much more than any of his officials did. He knew what he was getting into." Getting out could prove more difficult.
With Rod Nordland and Stryker McGuire in London
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2005 MSNBC.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|