Moment of reckoning for the former Prime Minister

TONY BLAIR is braced for a return to the political spotlight with his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq Inquiry.

For many of those watching, there will be a hope that it finally marks a moment of reckoning for the former Prime Minister.

For Mr Blair, it will be a chance to publicly justify what was undoubtedly the most contentious decision of his premiership, one that has come to define his political legacy.

The former Sedgefield MP will be the star witness when the inquiry turns to the politicians, having so far heard from a succession of diplomats, officials and military top brass.

The picture they have painted is one of concern within Whitehall at both the legality and the wider political legitimacy of military action to oust Saddam Hussein, combined with an almost complete lack of planning for the aftermath.

Mr Blair will, no doubt, face questions about whether he could have used his leverage as the US’ key ally to ensure that more was done to prevent Iraq spiralling into violence and chaos following the invasion.

But the main issue will be the central decision to go to war in the first place and whether he took the country into conflict on the basis of a “lie” regarding Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

In particular, he will be asked about what exactly was “signed in blood” – in the words of Britain’s then ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Meyer – when he met George Bush at the president’s Texas ranch in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion.

Critics have long claimed that this was the moment when Mr Blair committed himself to joining the US in military action to achieve “regime change”, regardless of the deliberations going on in the United Nations to disarm Iraq.

His chief foreign policy advisor at the time, Sir David Manning, told the inquiry that throughout the Iraq crisis Mr Blair was committed to achieving a diplomatic solution through the UN, although he always accepted that military action would be necessary if that failed.

Mr Blair pre-empted some of the questions he faces, telling Fern Britton in a BBC interview that he believed it would have been right to topple Saddam, even if it had been known at the time that he did not have WMD.

He has always insisted that intelligence agencies around the world believed that Iraq possessed WMD, although officials have told the inquiry that the evidence was “patchy” and at times contradictory.

In his BBC interview, Mr Blair acknowledged that other arguments would have had to be found to justify military action.

His comments raise questions both as to whether the WMD issue was no more than a pretext for the invasion and about what alternative arguments could have been found for war.

The inquiry has been told repeatedly that officials regarded military action simply for the purpose of achieving regime change as illegal under international law.

The legal basis of the military action will be another of the central issues Mr Blair will have to address, as will another key witness – the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

He issued a brief opinion on the eve of the 2003 invasion saying the action was lawful, after the then head of the armed forces, Admiral Lord Boyce, demanded an assurance that they were acting legally.

He had earlier given Mr Blair a longer, more detailed legal opinion – not shown to the rest of the Cabinet – in which he said that while a “reasonable case” for war could be made, the safest course would be to get a UN Security Council resolution specifically authorising military action.

The inquiry will also hear an alternative view of the law from another witness, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a Foreign Office legal advisor, who resigned because she believed that the invasion was unlawful.

Probe into ‘torture’ unit

A SECRET British military interrogation unit is being investigated after dozens of Iraqis alleged they suffered abuse, sources said yesterday.

The detainees’ lawyers said the Joint Forward Intelligence Team was not answerable to the Army chain of command but operated as a “compound within a compound”.

The Iraqi prisoners complained they were tortured by being hooded, put in “stress positions”, disorientated, and deprived of sleep and daylight, with interrogators threatening to rape their wives and mothers, according to their legal team.

Phil Shiner, from Public Interest Lawyers, who is representing 47 Iraqis, called for the Government to investigate the alleged use of unlawful, coercive interrogation methods.