Guardian UK: Iraq leak has Blair back in firing line

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1307907,00.html

Secret memos warned of new dictators and a lack of post-invasion strategy

Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday September 19, 2004
The Observer

Tony Blair was last night forced on to the defensive over Iraq after explosive leaked documents revealed that he was warned a year before the invasion that a war could send the country into meltdown.

The Prime Minister was advised by officials that the country risked 'reverting to type' - with a succession of military coups installing a dictator who could then go on to acquire his own weapons of mass destruction - and that British troops would be trapped in Iraq 'for many years'.

Even his own foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, concluded in a private note that President Bush had no answer to the big questions about the invasion - including 'what happens on the morning after?' The memos, showing how detailed military planning was even a year before the invasion, will prompt renewed questions about whether better planning for the aftermath of war could have prevented the bloodshed now engulfing Iraq.

The highly confidential papers represent one of the most serious leaks Downing Street has ever had to confront - both because of the extremely restricted nature of their circulation and the embarrassment they may cause senior US figures named in the memos - and will prompt a major Whitehall mole hunt. Last night speculation was focusing on the Butler inquiry into the intelligence gathered in Iraq, which was given thousands of confidential documents detailing the run-up to war.


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