This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should

Published by The Sunday Times - UK:

�This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.�

Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan

Michael Smith

A SECRET document from the heart of government reveals today that Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification.

The Downing Street minutes, headed �Secret and strictly personal � UK eyes only�, detail one of the most important meetings ahead of the invasion.

It was chaired by the prime minister and attended by his inner circle. The document reveals Blair backed �regime change� by force from the outset, despite warnings from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, that such action could be illegal.

The minutes, published by The Sunday Times today, begins with the warning: �This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.� It records a meeting in July 2002, attended by military and intelligence chiefs, at which Blair discussed military options having already committed himself to supporting President George Bush�s plans for ousting Saddam.

�If the political context were right, people would support regime change,� said Blair. He added that the key issues were �whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan space to work�.

The political strategy proved to be arguing Iraq�s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed such a threat that military action had to be taken. However, at the July meeting Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said the case for war was �thin� as �Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran�.

Straw suggested they should �work up� an ultimatum about weapons inspectors that would �help with the legal justification�. Blair is recorded as saying that �it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors�.

A separate secret briefing for the meeting said Britain and America had to �create� conditions to justify a war.

The papers, the second sensitive leak close to the election, appear to be an attempt by disaffected Whitehall insiders to attack Blair�s integrity. They are likely to fuel claims he misled the country on Iraq.

One reason for the secrecy is that the minutes record discussion of US plans for invasion; another is that at the time Blair had given no indication that plans were so advanced.

He had not revealed to MPs or the public that in April 2002 he had told Bush �the UK would support US military action to bring about regime change�, as recorded in the Foreign Office briefing paper. Both before and after the July meeting Blair insisted in public no decision had been made.

The July meeting was later mentioned by Lord Butler in his report on the use of intelligence on WMD as a �key stage� in the road to war; but its details have never been revealed until now.

The minutes show Goldsmith warned Blair eight months before war started on March 19, 2003 that finding legal justification would be �difficult�. The attorney-general only ruled unambiguously war was lawful a few days before the war started after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff, demanded unequivocal written confirmation.

Boyce was never shown Goldsmith�s more equivocal advice to Blair of March 7, 2003, and says today ministers failed to give him protection from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. �I have always been troubled by the ICC,� he says, adding that if British servicemen are put on trial, ministers should be �brought into the frame as well�. Asked if that should include Blair and Goldsmith, he tells The Observer: �Too bloody right.�

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the leaked minute showed Blair had �agreed to an illegal regime change with the Bush administration. It set out to create the justification for going to war. It was to be war by any means.�

Downing Street claimed the document contained �nothing new�.

[End item] Url.: http://tinyurl.com/drvkl - 2005 Times Newspapers.

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/4bm9d
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

*The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism !

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice�s office is suppressing data, showing that the number of major terrorist attacks worldwide exploded from 175 in 2003 to 625 in 2004, the highest number since the Cold War began to wane in 1985. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c8fwd

* HR At present 'Persona non Grata' in Holland :-) - because:

He who travels far will often see things

Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song.

'Journey to the East' - Hermann Hesse

*'The war in Iraq is illegal' says United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan in a BBC interview: txt+video - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

*England's legal advise by the Foreign Office: the Iraq war is a 'crime of aggression' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/44nhn

*A 55' seconds 'sound bite' concerning the US-Israeli 'Dogs of War' - 'bringing democracy' everywhere. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5u98v

* How to make a 'Citizen's Arrest' to stop Bush, Wolfowitz, Negroponte, Kissinger and all of the other war criminals of any nationality, any offender who violates international law during these times of war - Citizens Arrests: Url.: http://www.constitution.org/grossack/arrest.htm

* Colin Powell: ''It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Said as 'US Secretary of State' in a speech at the 'Conference on Anti-Semitism of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe' German Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Berlin - April 28th - 2004 - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/22p6c

* Former PM Wim Kok and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court: Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

* TIME magazine: The Netherlands and the massacre in Srebrenica: 8000 murdered - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/apm34

* Sued: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies: Url. http://tinyurl.com/3tgo3

* It can and must be done !

* Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

Best News Web Sites, updated daily or hourly

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ for Iraq and more
http://www.legitgov.org/
for US/UK politics and voter frauds
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ for censored stories
http://english.aljazeera.net/ for mainstream arab opinion
http://www.freearabvoice.org/index.htm for resistance reports

Best Analysis Sites

http://globalresearch.ca for global power politics
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ for US sleaze
http://www.onlinejournal.com for radical commentary
http://www.medialens.org/ for insights into the media
http://scoop.co.nz/ for general news
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html APFN - Variety of items.

HR

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