DOGG
24-08-2003, 09:58 PM
Two radically different versions of what happened inside Downing Street in September last year in the run-up to the war with Iraq emerged this week from Lord Hutton's inquiry.
The version that Downing Street presented to the public at the time was of a prime minister struggling to avoid war, intent on working within international law by going through the United Nations, and hinting that Britain was acting as a check on the wilder and more belligerent elements within Washington.
But the emails from various staff members at Downing Street produced in evidence to the Hutton inquiry this week suggest an alternative narrative. These emails, covering the period between September 5 and the publication on September 24 of the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, are not full of concerns and proposals about how the dossier will impact on efforts to get the UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq and ensure that Saddam Hussein cooperated with them.
Instead, the thoughts expressed in the emails convey a frantic attempt to produce a dossier that will justify aggressive action against Saddam Hussein. Within the space of a fortnight and with almost no new evidence - other than the now infamous "45-minute warning" - Mr Blair's aides turned British policy towards Iraq upside down.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4739307-111577,00.html
The version that Downing Street presented to the public at the time was of a prime minister struggling to avoid war, intent on working within international law by going through the United Nations, and hinting that Britain was acting as a check on the wilder and more belligerent elements within Washington.
But the emails from various staff members at Downing Street produced in evidence to the Hutton inquiry this week suggest an alternative narrative. These emails, covering the period between September 5 and the publication on September 24 of the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, are not full of concerns and proposals about how the dossier will impact on efforts to get the UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq and ensure that Saddam Hussein cooperated with them.
Instead, the thoughts expressed in the emails convey a frantic attempt to produce a dossier that will justify aggressive action against Saddam Hussein. Within the space of a fortnight and with almost no new evidence - other than the now infamous "45-minute warning" - Mr Blair's aides turned British policy towards Iraq upside down.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4739307-111577,00.html