The Game

Blair told Bush: Taliban, then Iraq
4 April 2003
Tony Blair had to persuade George Bush to tackle the Taliban before attacking Iraq in the weeks after September 11, the former British Ambassador to Washington has revealed.

The US President came under pressure from hawks within his administration to topple Saddam Hussein in the first crisis meeting at Camp David after the 2001 terror strikes in New York and Washington.

But Sir Christopher Meyer said that when the Prime Minister met Mr Bush in the Oval Office a few days later he urged him to hit al Qaida and Afghanistan's Taliban regime first.

"Tony Blair's view was, 'whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand and the job at hand was get al Qaida, give the Taliban an ultimatum'."

After listening to the appeal, the President took Mr Blair aside and promised he would keep Iraq "for another day", Sir Christopher, who recently left his post in Washington, told a documentary broadcast on America's PBS network yesterday.

Sir Christopher said after the Taliban was defeated and Iraq became the main issue, the Prime Minister advised Mr Bush to exhaust options at the United Nations and offered himself as envoy to sell European leaders on US policy.

"Blair said, 'if you want to do this you can do this on your own, you have the military strength to go into Iraq and do it, but our advice to you is even a great superpower like the US needs to do this with partners and allies'."

When Mr Bush went public with the concept of a pre-emptive strike against Saddam it alarmed many people around the world, Sir Christopher said.

"Taken literally, these words meant a rampaging hyperpower who'll whizz around the world whacking people left, right and centre whenever it sees its security interests threatened."

The documentary, entitled Blair's War, depicts the Prime Minister's increasingly desperate attempt to maintain the Western alliance over Iraq in the lead-up to war.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's Ambassador to the UN, told the programme that diplomats erred by failing to address their divisions following the Security Council's first resolution on Iraq.

"They were differences which we knew about. Looking back, I think that was a mistake of diplomacy that we didn't try to deal with those nuances that turned in to ravines by the end of the game."

Sir Christopher said Britain and US still expected France ultimately to support the war and it was a major shock when the French foreign minister told the UN in January that he saw no reason for military action.

"I happened to see Colin Powell pretty soon after the meeting on January 20 with his deputy Richard Armitage and ... their remarks were bordering on the unprintable," Sir Christopher said.

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