Straw 'very reluctantly' backed Iraq invasion

Former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw admitted today that he only “very reluctantly” came round to supporting the invasion of Iraq.

He told the Iraq Inquiry he had presented Tony Blair with an alternative plan on the eve of the crucial Commons vote on war which did not involve committing British troops alongside the Americans.

He said his support for the invasion had been “critical” if UK forces were to be involved as Mr Blair could not have carried the Government and Parliament without him.

But while he had not actually considered resigning, he nevertheless said he had weighed his responsibilities in relation to the policy on Iraq “very heavily”.

Throughout his evidence he repeatedly appeared to suggest that his views were at odds with Mr Blair, saying that, while he owed the then British prime minister his loyalty, they were “two different people”.

A policy which simply sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein – as the Americans were advocating and some witnesses have suggested Mr Blair wanted – would have been “improper and self-evidently unlawful” and he would not have gone along with it.

Throughout the build-up to the invasion, he said he had always believed it was possible to resolve the crisis over Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction without the need for military action.

And he bitterly attacked both French President Jacques Chirac and chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix for scuppering diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

He bitterly criticised Dr Blix for failing to table a document outlining Saddam’s failure to co-operate with the weapons inspectors before the final meeting of the UN Security Council on March 7.

Mr Straw said the 173-page report had made an “indelible impression” on him but when he tackled Dr Blix about it he appeared not to appreciate its significance.

“I said to him ’I have read every word of this document’. He said to me ’That is more than I have done’. I was astonished by this,” he said.

He said that, if other ministers attending the Security Council had seen the report, it could have swung support behind a second resolution which, in turn, could have forced Saddam to comply without the need for military action.

“I think most people round the table would have come to the same conclusion as me,” he said.

He said it was President Chirac’s declaration that France would use its veto to block a second resolution “whatever the circumstances” which killed off hopes of a diplomatic solution.

“This was the great Chiracian pronouncement. Whatever the circumstances, he says, La France will veto,” Mr Straw said.

“Unquestionably, if we had had a second resolution we might have avoided war and if we had not done so there would have been wider international and domestic consent.”

Pressed on whether he had actually considered quitting the Cabinet rather than support military action, he said: “Did I ever think ’I’m going to resign over this’? No, I didn’t.

“We all have our bottom lines. Did I understand the nature of the responsibilities on me? Yes, I did, for sure, and weighed them very heavily.

“But in the event, I came to the decisions that I came to. I did so very reluctantly, but on what I judged to be the best evidence available at the time.”