Apr. 7, 2013
Hitherto unseen evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by British intelligence has revealed that former prime minister Tony Blair was told that Iraq had, at most, only a trivial amount of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that Libya was in this respect a far greater threat.
Intelligence officers have disclosed that just the day before Mr Blair went to visit president George Bush in April 2002, he appeared to accept this but returned a “changed man” and subsequently ordered the production of dossiers to “find the intelligence” that he wanted to use to justify going to war.
This and other secret evidence (given in camera) to the inquiry will, The Independent on Sunday understands, be used as the basis for severe criticism of the former prime minister when the Chilcot report is published.
Mr Blair is said to have “realised” and “understood” that Libya was the real threat and that he knew “it would not be sensible to lead the argument on Saddam and the WMD issue” according to evidence of a conversation on 4 April 2002, the day before he flew to the US to spend a weekend with Mr Bush. Read full on Independent
