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[Adventurer]

Ex-UK envoy: US focused on Iraq hours after 9/11

Former British ambassador says Tony Blair was too timid to change course of Iraq war

DAVID STRINGER
AP News

Nov 26, 2009 11:28 EST

Tony Blair could have delayed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ensured better plans were in place for its chaotic aftermath by taking a tougher stance with President George W. Bush, Britain's ex-ambassador to Washington said Thursday.

Christopher Meyer, Blair's U.S. envoy from 1997-2003, told a panel investigating the Iraq war that Blair failed to use his influence with Bush to stall the frantic rush to invasion.

"We could have achieved more by playing a tougher role," Meyer testified to the five-person inquiry.

Meyer said U.N. inspections to determine whether or not Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction were meaningless, because by late 2002, war was inevitable. Iraq's alleged possession of such weapons was a key justification for the war � even though no weapons were ever found.

"You had to short-circuit the inspection process by finding the notorious smoking gun," Meyer said. "We � the Americans, the British � have never really recovered from that, because of course there was no smoking gun."

Blair should have withheld British cooperation in a military offensive until detailed plans were drafted for action after Saddam Hussein was toppled, Meyer said. Blair could also have demanded Bush address the Arab-Israeli conflict, he said.

"There could have been a very different outcome, but that did not happen," Meyer testified. Hardball tactics from Blair "wouldn't have led to a rupture, but it would have changed the nature of American planning."

The inquiry, the most sweeping review of the conflict so far, was in its third day of hearing evidence in public. It is examining a period from the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States to the withdrawal of U.K. troops from Iraq in May.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/11/26/ex-uk-envoy-us-focused-on-iraq-hours-after-911-2/

[catman]

Too bad this is a lame duck inquiry.

[ChopChaeJoe]

This is news to no one, I think.

[bacasper]

Plans for wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan were in place well before 9/11 which was merely the false flag pretext to justify them.