U.K. Ambassador Details Rush to Iraq War

The former U.K. ambassador to the U.S. has publicly admitted something of a truism: The plans to invade Iraq did not give time to U.N. weapons inspectors to do their job, and coalition forces “found [themselves] scrabbling for the smoking gun.”  —JCL

The Guardian:

The military timetable for an invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not give time for UN weapons inspectors in the country to do their job, the former British ambassador to Washington told the Iraq inquiry in London today.

Sir Christopher Meyer said the “unforgiving nature” of the build-up after American forces had been told to prepare for war meant that “we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun”.

He added: “It was another way of saying ‘it’s not that Saddam has to prove that he’s innocent, we’ve now bloody well got to try and prove he’s guilty.’ And we – the Americans, the British – have never really recovered from that because of course there was no smoking gun.”

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Guardian / Sarah Lee

Sir Christopher Meyer, former U.K. ambassador to the U.S., talks about a time when the United Kingdom had “a legal problem” with regime change in Iraq.