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Blair in Secret Plot with Bush to Dupe U.N.
By Simon Walters
01/29/06 "Mail
On Sunday" -- -- A White House leak revealing
astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about
the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm.
A new book exposes how the two men connived to dupe the United
Nations and blows the lid off Mr Blair's claim that he was a
restraining influence on Mr Bush.
He offered his total support for the war at a secret White House
summit as Mr Bush displayed his contempt for the UN, made a
series of wild threats against Saddam Hussein and showed a
devastating ignorance about the catastrophic aftermath of the
war.
Based on access to information at the highest level, the book by
leading British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands QC, Professor
of Law at London University, demonstrates how the two men
decided to go to war regardless of whether they obtained UN
backing.
The revelations make a nonsense of Mr Blair's claim that the
final decision was not made until MPs voted in the Commons 24
hours before the war - and could revive the risk of him being
charged with war crimes or impeached by Parliament itself.
The book also makes serious allegations concerning the conduct
of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer
and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith over Goldsmith's legal
advice on the war.
And it alleges the British Government boasted that disgraced
newspaper tycoon Conrad Black was being used by Mr Bush's allies
in America as a channel for pro-war propaganda in the UK via his
Daily Telegraph newspaper.
The leaks are contained in a new version of Sands' book Lawless
World, first published last year, when it emerged that Lord
Goldsmith had told Mr Blair the war could be unlawful - before a
lastminute U-turn.
The new edition, to be published by Penguin on Thursday, is
likely to cause a fierce new controversy on both sides of the
Atlantic.
It follows recent charges against two British men under the
Official Secrets Act after a transcript of another conversation
between Mr Bush and Blair, in which the President raised the
possibility of bombing the Al Jazeera Arab TV station, was
leaked by a Whitehall official.
Both governments will be horrified that the stream of leaks
revealing the grim truth about the war is turning into a flood.
The most damaging new revelation concerns the meeting between Mr
Blair and Mr Bush at the White House on January 31, 2003, during
which Mr Blair urged the President to seek a second UN
resolution giving specific backing for the war.
The Mail on Sunday has established that the meeting was attended
only by Mr Blair, his Downing Street foreign policy adviser Sir
David Manning, Mr Bush and the President's then national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice, plus an official note-taker.
The top-secret record of the meeting was circulated to a tiny
handful of senior figures in the two administrations.
Immediately afterwards, the two leaders gave a Press conference
in which a nervous-looking Mr Blair claimed the meeting had been
a success. Mr Bush gave qualified support for going down the UN
route. But observers noted the awkward body language between the
two men. Sands' book explains why. Far from giving a genuine
endorsement to Mr Blair's attempt to gain full UN approval, Mr
Bush was only going through the motions. And Mr Blair not only
knew it, but went along with it.
The description of the January 31 meeting echoes the recent
memoirs of Britain's former ambassador to Washington, Sir
Christopher Meyer.
Meyer, who was excluded from the private session between Blair
and Bush, claimed the summit marked the culmination of the Prime
Minister's failure to use his influence to hold back Mr Bush.
Equally significantly, Meyer was puzzled by Blair's behaviour
when the two leaders emerged to join other aides. Meyer writes:
"We were all milling around in the State dining room as Bush and
Blair put the final touches to what they were going to say to
the media.
"Bush had a notepad on which he had written a form of words on
the second resolution...He read it out...There was silence. I
waited for Blair to say he needed something as supportive as
possible. He said nothing. I waited for somebody on the No 10
team to say something. Nothing was said. I cursed myself
afterwards for not piping up.
"At the Press conference, Bush gave only a perfunctory and
lukewarm support for a second resolution. It was neither his nor
Blair's finest performance."
In view of Sands' disclosures, Blair had every reason to look
awkward: he knew that despite his public talk of getting UN
support, privately he had just committed himself to going to war
no matter what the UN did.
When, in due course, the UN refused to back the war, Mr Blair
seized on the fact that French President Jacques Chirac said he
would not support any pro-war resolution, claiming that the
French veto was so 'unreasonable' that a UN vote was pointless.
In reality, Bush and Blair had decided to go to war before
Chirac uttered a word.
The disclosures will be seized on by anti-war critics in
Britain, including Left-wing MPs who say Mr Blair should be
impeached for his handling of the war.
However, Ministers will argue that after three major British
inquiries into the war, and with thousands of British troops due
to be sent home from Iraq this year, it is time to move on.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said last night: "These matters
have been thoroughly investigated and we stand by our position."
©2006 Associated Newspapers Ltd ·
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