We discussed toppling Saddam Hussein a year before invasion, mandarin admits

Published on Tuesday 24 November 2009 21:50

BRITISH officials secretly discussed the prospects for "regime change" in Iraq in late 2001 – more than a year before the invasion – the inquiry into the war has been told.

The first day of public hearings in London, headed by Sir John Chilcot, heard Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officials drew up an internal "options" paper, which included the possibility of ousting Saddam Hussein.

However, Sir William Patey, the then head of the FCO's Middle East department, said the idea was swiftly rejected on the grounds that it had "no basis in law".

The inquiry, which took evidence from a series of senior FCO and Ministry of Defence officials, heard that a two-page paper had been drawn up against a background of growing impatience in the US with the strategy of "containment" of Saddam.

The international sanctions regime was "in trouble", while there were increasing concerns that the Iraqi dictator was making progress in his efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"This is a paper I commissioned from my staff and said, 'Come on, let's have the whole range of options out here. Nothing's off the table'," Sir William said.

He told the inquiry the options "went from 'hard' containment to 'soft' containment, to the lifting of sanctions, to – I have to say – we had at the end the regime-change option, which was dismissed at the time as having no basis in law'."

He added: "It was very much an internal paper. We didn't go into how to achieve regime change."

However, the inquiry heard even in early 2001, elements of the new US administration of president George Bush were already discussing possible regime change.

Sir Peter Ricketts, who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), said Britain wanted a strengthened "smart sanctions regime" – a position initially backed by senior figures in the Bush administration, such as then secretary of state Colin Powell. They were aware, however, of other influential figures in Washington who were already taking a harder line.

"We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," Sir Peter said.

He cited an article by the US's then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice – written before Mr Bush actually took office – warning that "nothing will change" in Iraq until Saddam was gone.

The FCO's Sir William added: "We were aware of these drumbeats from Washington and we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that end of the spectrum."

Sir Peter said that, at the same time, there was concern within the JIC that Saddam was continuing in his efforts to acquire WMD.

"In 2001, we were seeing an acceleration of missile programmes, we saw increased Iraq efforts to secure material for the nuclear programme and we saw continuing interest in CW (chemical weapons] research and development," he said.

Following the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, Sir Peter said there had been a further hardening of opinion in the US.

"We heard people in Washington thought there might be some link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden, undocumented. I don't think we saw any evidence of it," he said.

"The tone of voice was more, 'If there turns out to be any link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, that is going to have major implications for Iraq and Saddam Hussein'."

Simon Webb, who was policy director at the MoD, said he found the change in the US following the 2001 attacks to be "dramatic".

"The shift in thinking was to say, 'We cannot afford to wait for these threats to materialise. We must be ready to engage potential threats wherever they emerge'," he said.

While the initial response concentrated on Afghanistan – where the 9/11 attacks originated – Sir Peter said that, from November 2001, he began to hear talk in Washington of "phase two" in the "war on terror".

He said the attacks also had the effect of making the Pentagon rather than the state department the "dominant instrument" in US foreign policy.

Mr Webb said that, while there was no immediate change of policy in Washington to support regime change, that was where the policy debate was heading.

The inquiry continues today.