FORMER BRITISH prime minister Tony Blair will face questions about his decision to join the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when he appears before the Iraq Inquiry in London today.
His appearance before the inquiry committee is expected to provoke a large anti-war protest.
During his long-awaited appearance, Mr Blair is expected to be grilled about his decision to go to war without a second UN resolution and despite repeated warnings from foreign office lawyers that the invasion breached international law. He will also be questioned about the intelligence, which turned out to be untrue, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Dozens of relatives of British soldiers who died in Iraq have been given seats for the hearing in the Queen Elizabeth Centre near the Houses of Parliament. However, there have been strong complaints from many that the inquiry, led by former civil servant Sir John Chilcot, should have moved the session to a larger venue.
Mr Blair has spent weeks preparing for his appearance, which is likely to focus on a meeting he had with then US president George Bush in Crawford, Texas, in February 2002, which has prompted claims – led by former British ambassador Christopher Meyer – that he “signed in blood” to join the American-led invasion.
In addition, Mr Blair will be asked to defend his decision to tell the House of Commons in September 2002 that intelligence had “established beyond doubt” that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction, though no such weapons were found despite exhaustive searches after Saddam’s overthrow.
The inquiry, which has been much criticised in Britain for its style of questioning, has already been told by senior officials that intelligence was received in the days before the invasion began that the weapons had been dismantled. But former senior ministers have said this intelligence was inconclusive.
Last month Mr Blair gave a hostage to fortune when he said in a television interview he believed Saddam should have been removed from power even if he did not have the weapons. However, a desire for “regime change” is not sufficient justification for invasion under international law, and could lead to war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
Mr Blair can be expected to insist that he believed the intelligence assessments made in the years before the invasion, and that similar views about Iraq’s conduct were shared by Arab countries, and by France and Russia – even if there was division on what should be done to force Saddam to comply with past UN directions.
Moreover, he will insist the invasion was legal under UN law using the so-called “revival” argument outlined by former attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith earlier this week – that Iraq’s failure to comply with UN resolution 1441 brought the UN’s earlier resolution 687 from the time of the first Gulf War back into force, which did provide for military action to be taken. Mr Blair’s successor, British prime minister Gordon Brown, is to appear before the inquiry in February or March.
