Straw warned Blair of War

Spiegel -September 14

...Der erfahrene politische Journalist John Kampfner schreibt unter Berufung auf Gespräche mit 40 "zentralen Regierungsmitgliedern", Straw habe Premierminister Tony Blair wenige Tage vor der Invasion gedrängt, nicht an der Seite der USA in den Krieg zu ziehen. "Straw bekam kalte Füße, als die zweite UNO-Resolution nicht zu Stande kam", sagte Kampfner am Sonntag der BBC mit Blick auf den damaligen heftigen Widerstand im Sicherheitsrat gegen einen Irak-Krieg..."

Book claims Straw 'against war'

BBC -September 14

...Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a last-minute plea to Tony Blair not to go to war in Iraq, a new book claims.

According to the book, Mr Straw sent a private memo to the Prime Minister just days before hostilities began on 20 March, urging him to tell the US that Britain would offer moral and political support but no combat troops.

The publication of extracts from the book in a Sunday newspaper comes a day before the Hutton Inquiry resumes after a 10-day break.

BBC Director General Greg Dyke is among those who have been called to testify on Monday by Lord Hutton, who is investigating the events leading to the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.

In his book, entitled Blair's War, political journalist John Kampfner claims Mr Blair rejected Mr Straw's advice and demanded an assurance that the foreign secretary would support the war despite his reservations.

Labour MP calls for BBC apology Mr Kampfner told BBC One's Breakfast with Frost programme: "The sourcing of the book is simply that I did more than 60 interviews with 40 players, all of whom were intimately involved in the process, from all Government departments from No 10 to the Foreign Office and others.

Iraq WMD report shelved due to lack of evidence

Sify India -September 14

After failing to get any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the US and Britain have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on the controversial issue, media reported today.

Efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons have so far ended in failure, The Sunday Times claimed in its report.

It had been expected that a progress report would be published tomorrow but MPs on the British Parliaments security and intelligence committee have been told that even this has been delayed and no new date set.

British defence intelligence sources have confirmed that the final report, which is to be submitted by David Kay, the survey groups leader, to George Tenet, head of the CIA, had been delayed and may not necessarily even be published, the paper said

More about Kampfner's book

Blair's Wars A Liberal Imperialist in Action

DavidHigham.co.uk -

Category: Non-Fiction
UK Publisher: Simon & Schuster
UK Publication Date: 15/09/03

Tony Blair has committed British forces to action five times in six years. No British Prime Minister and few world leaders have come close in contemporary history. What is it about this deeply Christian man that has given him such a taste for war?

In BLAIR'S WARS, award-winning journalist John Kampfner gives the inside story of a man who came to office with no experience of -- and virtually no interest in -- foreign affairs but who quickly moulded himself into a man on a mission: to punish dictators and spread democracy across the globe. To do that he fell back on the basic tenets of British diplomacy, a yearning for friendship with the United States and a reliance on the armed forces, while proclaiming his vision in the more modern guise of liberal intervention.

This mission has taken Blair from the first air strikes against Iraq in 1998, at the time of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, to the Kosovo conflict of 1999; from the deployment of troops in Sierra Leone to George W. Bush's attack on the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after September 11 -- and then on to the final and decisive war against Saddam Hussein.

Through conversations with the main players across governments in London, Washington, New York and European capitals, BLAIR'S WARS details the processes by which the Prime Minister has prosecuted these campaigns -- and why. It reveals in riveting fashion the failure of diplomacy that preceded the showdown with Saddam. It shows how Blair decided from the beginning of Bush's presidency that he would allow nothing to get in the way of their close alliance; how he reconciled himself to war on Iraq at a very early stage; how he willed the intelligence material to conform to his plans; and how he dismissed the warnings of his diplomats that his approach would alienate him from countries he had so assiduously courted.

This is the story of a man who had convinced himself that his powers of persuasion could overcome all problems and defy all logic -- only to see those powers disappear.

On return to London, he joined the masonic world of the political lobby at Westminster, first as Chief Political Correspondent of the Financial Times and then as political correspondent and analyst for the BBC Today programme.

In 2002 he joined the New Statesman as its Political Editor, a job he combines with television and radio documentaries for the BBC and book writing.

His two-part series on the Middle East conflict, THE UGLY WAR, won him the Foreign Press Association's award of Journalist of the Year and Film of the Year in 2002.

BLAIR'S WARS, published by Simon and Schuster in September 2003, is his third book - his first under the auspices of David Higham Associates. His first venture into book writing was INSIDE YELTSIN'S RUSSIA, published by Cassell in 1994. That was followed by the critically-acclaimed ROBIN COOK - A BIOGRAPHY in 1998.