US Repeatedly Warned That Iraq Posed No Threat, Says Diplomat

Taken from The Daily Mail, UK, 15th December 2006
By BENEDICT BROGAN

British diplomats repeatedly warned the Americans that Iraq did not pose a threat and that removing Saddam Hussein would plunge the country into chaos, a former diplomat has claimed.

Carne Ross, who resigned from the Foreign Office in protest over the war, made the allegations in secret evidence to the 2004 Hutton inquiry.

His scathing assessment of the negotiations in the run-up to the 2003 invasion was released by the Commons for the first time yesterday.

It appears to blow another hole in Tony Blair's justification for the war, and will reinforce calls - led yesterday by former Premier John Major - for a public inquiry.

Particularly damaging is his assessment that the war was illegal because the UK failed to secure a proper resolution from the UN Security Council.

Mr Ross, who has sharply criticised the Government over its Iraq policy, concludes: "It is clear that in terms of the resolutions presented by the UK itself, the subsequent invasion was not authorised by the Security Council and was thus illegal."

Mr Ross was a senior diplomat in New York until the summer of 2002 and had first-hand experience of the growing confrontation with Saddam Hussein. He set out his concerns in written evidence to the Hutton inquiry that investigated the death of Government weapons scientist David Kelly.

He was barred from publishing it amid claims that it would breach the Official Secrets Act, but MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee agreed to place it on their website.

In his note he declares: "During my posting, at no time did the Government assess that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.

"On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed).

"(At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that "régime change" was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.)"

Despite Mr Blair's repeated claims in 2003 that Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to national security, Mr Ross told Lord Hutton there was "no intelligence evidence of significant holdings" of biological, chemical or nuclear materials.

And he pointed out that "Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited" because it had only a handful of missiles and its airforce "was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness".

He told the inquiry that despite American claims that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qa'eda, "there was no evidence of any connection between Iraq and any terrorist organisation".

Mr Ross' evidence is also scathing about the failure of the Government and in particular the Foreign Office to enforce international sanctions against Iraq in the face of flagrant breaches by Saddam Hussein.

"These proposals went nowhere. Inertia in the FCO and the inattention of key ministers combined to the effect that the UK never made any coordinated and sustained attempt to address sanctions busting," he said.

He added: "Coordinated, determined and sustained action to prevent illegal exports and target Saddam's illegal monies would have consumed a tiny proportion of the effort and resources of the war (and fewer lives), but could have provided a real alternative. It was never attempted."

The publication of his evidence will revive the controversy over whether the Prime Minister put pressure on the Attorney General, the Government's top legal official, to give the green light to British involvement in the invasion force.

Lord Goldsmith's advice on the legality of the war appeared to indicate that the Attorney General's view changed after pressure from Mr Blair.

Appearing before the committee last month, Mr Ross described the Iraq invasion and its aftermath as a "rank disaster".

The former diplomat was Britain's representative on Iraqi issues at the United Nations between 1998 and 2002.

He left the Foreign Office after giving evidenceto Lord Butler's inquiry into the build-up to war.

He told the MPs that he has been threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if he published his evidence, but was willing to pass the document to the Committee, whose deliberations and activites are covered by Parliamentary privilege.

In written evidence submitted previously to the committee, Mr Ross said: "International law was undermined by the invasion of Iraq." He also accused Tony Blair of politicising the Foreign Office. "Promotion to senior positions has been in part based on the political sympathies of officials. "Those closely associated with Number Ten, and who are seen to be sympathetic to the Prime Minister's prejudices, are swept into senior positions."