Former Blair aide defends Britain’s Iraq war role

Reporting from London â€”  Britain’s role in the war in Iraq is one to be proud of, a defiant Alastair Campbell told the ongoing Iraq Inquiry on Tuesday.

During five hours of questioning on the decision to invade Iraq along with the U.S., Campbell, who was Tony Blair’s communications director in 2003, put on a robust defense of his boss at the time, insisting that the British prime minister was not President George W. Bush’s “poodle.�

Campbell told the independent panel that Blair had been convinced by intelligence sources that Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons could be unleashed within a 45-minute time frame. He denied that American interests, including demands by Bush, forced Blair’s decision to go to war.

He also spoke of Blair’s eagerness to resolve the Iraq question through the United Nations “without a single shot being fired.�

“But if push comes to shove and the diplomatic route fails,� Campbell said, “Britain would see it as its responsibility and duty to take part in military action.�

Despite allegations to the contrary, planning for the aftermath of the war had been discussed in 2002, well before a final decision on the invasion, he said.

“Everybody was conscious that there would come a point in post-conflict Iraq and . . . I think people were starting to think about those questions even then.�

The five-member panel also heard Campbell defend a definitive government dossier that asserted that Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were an imminent threat. Campbell was a pivotal figure in a controversy at the time over allegations that the document had been “sexed up� to make a stronger case for war.

Campbell said all information in the document was the domain of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the umbrella group for the British secret services then headed by John Scarlett. Campbell said Scarlett had demanded 100% control of the document, although Campbell was asked to read it.

News coverage, particularly by the BBC, alleged that Campbell had recommended that the document be deliberately exaggerated.

“At no time did I say he [Scarlett] should beef up the information,� Campbell said. “At no point did anyone, from the prime minister down, say that it should be tailored to fit the argument.�

At one point, he said, the original information talked about weapons being available at 25 minutes’ notice. “If I had been in the business of ‘sexing up’ the document, I would have used that,� he said.

The controversy over the dossier, which apparently led to the suicide of government weapons inspector David Kelly, was “the result of dishonest journalism� and not inaccurate information, he said.

The dossier was “a genuine attempt� by Blair to inform the public as fully as possible without betraying classified information, Campbell said, adding that the prime minister’s reasons for finally taking the military route had nothing to do with pressure from Washington.

News reports at the time, and since, have portrayed Blair as a lackey of Bush.

“You seem to be wanting me to say that Tony Blair signed up . . . saying, ‘Regardless of the facts and WMD, we are going to get rid of this guy,’ � Campbell told the inquiry. “It was not like that.�

Blair was deeply committed to a U.N. and diplomatic solution and was not the president’s “poodle,� he said.

However, Blair’s correspondence with Bush during 2002 suggested growing consensus, Campbell said.

The tenor of Blair’s notes, he said, was that “we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are absolutely with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and Iraq is disarmed. If that can’t be done diplomatically and has to be done militarily, Britain will be there.�

Campbell said Blair’s decision to go to war revealed “somebody of really deep conviction and integrity, who was making the most difficult decision of his premiership.�

Several colleagues in the prime minister’s office wondered whether Blair would survive politically, given the huge opposition in Britain. Blair voluntarily resigned in June 2007.

“On the big picture, on the leadership he showed, on the leadership the British government showed on this issue, I was privileged to be there and I’m very, very proud of the part that I was able to play,� Campbell said.

His evidence was seen by BBC commentators as an “hors d’oeuvre� to testimony from Blair, expected this month.

Meanwhile, a months-long inquiry in the Netherlands as to how the Dutch government came to support the invasion of Iraq concluded Tuesday that a desire to maintain good relations with the United States and Britain trumped concerns over the legitimacy of the war.

The foreign minister at the time, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, decided in 2002 to side with Washington and London on the Iraq question without consulting the prime minister, said the report by a commission. That view then became the Dutch government’s position before the invasion, despite widespread public opposition.

De Hoop Scheffer was later named NATO secretary-general, but the inquiry said the appointment was not connected to the Dutch government’s support for the war.

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Stobart is a news assistant in The Times’ London Bureau.