New leak shows secret Iraq war plans
By Peter Graff /

Reuters

LONDON - U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime

Minister Tony Blair were determined to topple Saddam Hussein at least nine months before they launched the war in

Iraq, documents leaked in a Sunday newspaper say.

The secret documents could have a late impact in the election

next Thursday, in which Iraq -- and whether the prime minister told the truth about his case for war -- has emerged

as a last-minute issue in the final week of campaigning.

Blair has always maintained that he did not commit to

war in Iraq until after Saddam was given a final chance to abandon banned weapons, and that "regime change" was

never his aim.

But the Sunday Times printed what it said were secret minutes of a top level cabinet meeting

held in July 2002 to discuss Iraq, nine months before the invasion.

According to the minutes, Blair spoke to

his cabinet explicitly in terms of toppling Saddam.

"If the political context were right, people would support

regime change," Blair is recorded as saying. "The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether

we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said

the case for war was "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than

that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Straw proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons

inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal justification for the use of force."

Spy

chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, fresh from a trip to Washington, had concluded that war was "inevitable" because "Bush

wanted to remove Saddam through military action", and "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".



Blair ordered his chief of defence staff, Sir Michael Boyce, to present him with war plans later that week, the

minutes said.

IRAQ SLOW TO EMERGE AS ELECTION ISSUE

Although many in Britain opposed the war, it has been

slow to emerge as an election issue because both Blair's Labour party and the main opposition Conservatives backed

it.

But the Conservatives have used the case Blair made for war to attack his credibility. And they are hoping

some of the traditionally left-leaning Labour party's supporters will abandon it for the anti-war third party, the

Liberal Democrats.

Polls show Blair is likely to win a third term in the election, although his huge

parliamentary majority may shrink.

But he has been careful to say he believes the result could still be in

doubt. In an interview with the Observer newspaper, Blair warned anti-war voters against making a protest vote.



"There will be people who will feel very, very strongly over Iraq. But if they vote Liberal Democrat in a seat

where the Conservatives are second, it is not policy on Iraq that will change -- it's the policy on the economy, on

the health service, on schools, on the minimum wage," he said.

The Sunday Times document was the second major

Iraq leak to emerge in the final week before the election. Last week Channel Four news leaked advice to Blair in

which the attorney general raised doubts about whether the war was legal.

Blair's Downing Street office

declined to comment on whether the minutes leaked to the Sunday Times were genuine, but said the meeting took place

before the U.N. Security Council resolution that provided the basis for Blair's case for war. "This was before the

decision to go down the U.N. route, and before resolution 1441 on which the attorney general based his judgment," a

spokeswoman said. "The circumstances therefore quickly became out of date."