Campbell: Doubts about Iraq , Cheney favored immediate action

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All of Tony Blair's closest aides had "severe moments of doubt" about his decision to join the American invasion of Iraq, Alastair Campbell reveals in his diaries, published today.

Downing Street's former director of communications suggests that Mr Blair was the only member of his inner circle who did not have private reservations about the decision to topple Saddam Hussein.

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In a prophetic remark, Mr Reid told the Cabinet: "We will be judged by the Iraq that replaces Saddam's Iraq, and by the Middle East." Lord Irvine of Lairg, then Lord Chancellor, warned that the public would think America and Britain needed a further United Nations resolution before taking military action because the Government had made so much effort to get one. Mr Blair admitted that public opinion in Britain was less favourable towards intervention than in the United States.

The Campbell book sheds light on a dispute at the highest levels of the Bush administration over whether it should back Britain's call for another UN resolution. Six months before the invasion, Karen Hughes, President George Bush's communications adviser, said "not too convincingly" that the US President was always going to go down the UN route, Mr Campbell writes. But Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, "looked very sour" throughout talks at Camp David because he favoured immediate action. "After dinner, when TB and Bush walked alone to the chopper, Bush was open with him that Cheney was in a different position," says Mr Campbell.

Campbell: We all had doubts about Iraq except Tony
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2747722.ece


the guardian
At talks with Mr Blair at Camp David, Mr Bush said Mr Cheney wanted an immediate invasion. "As we left, Bush joked to me 'I suppose you can tell the story of how Tony flew in and pulled the crazed unilateralist back from the brink'."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2121885,00.html

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2121913,00.html