Blair Says U.S. Wasn’t Set on Iraq War in ’02
British Prime Minister Tony Blair firmly denied that the Bush administration had signaled just months after Sept. 11 that a decision was made to invade Iraq.
Leaked British memos suggest concerns that the administration was determined in 2002 to invade Iraq, months before the U.S. and Britain unsuccessfully sought U.N. Security Council approval for military action.
According to the memos, Richard Dearlove, then chief of Britain’s intelligence service, said President Bush “wanted to remove Saddam” and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
Blair told Associated Press that the leaks had been taken out of context.
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