LONDON — The British government was aware of “drumbeats in Washington” in early 2001 calling for a change of regimes in Iraq but steered clear of such an aggressive policy before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that year, officials said Tuesday as a panel launched a major inquiry into how and why the British government went to war in Iraq.
William Patey, head of the Foreign Office’s Middle East department at the time, told the hearing that in February 2001 “we were aware of these drumbeats in Washington and internally we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that.”
“We didn’t think that Saddam (Hussein) was a good thing and it would be great if he went,” he said, “but we didn’t have a policy for getting rid of him.”
The inquiry is probing the decision of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government to join the U.S.-led war that toppled Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, in 2003. The six-member panel will interview policymakers, secret service chiefs, military commanders and relatives of soldiers who died in the war. Blair is scheduled to appear in January.
The panel also is expected to look into long-standing accusations that Blair’s government skewed intelligence reports to justify going to war. Los Angeles Times
