Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Iraq War Based On UK 'Assumption'

By Europe correspondent Emma Alberici
Posted Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:07am AEDT
Courtesy of ABC News

One of Tony Blair's chief aides has told the Iraq Inquiry that Britain went to war on the "assumption" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Jonathan Powell was Tony Blair's chief of staff throughout his premiership.

He said Downing Street was in no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, based more on their instincts about Hussein's past history than on any specific intelligence.

Mr Powell denied any secret deal to go to war had been hatched with the United States in early 2002 at a meeting in Crawford, Texas.

But he revealed that not long after that encounter, Tony Blair had warned then-US president George W Bush of the need to move quickly if it came to military action.

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