Elements of the new US administration of President George Bush were already discussing "regime change" in Iraq two years before the invasion of 2003, the official inquiry into the war was told today.
Sir Peter Ricketts, who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001, said there was concern in both London and Washington that the strategy of "containment" of Saddam Hussain was "failing".
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Giving evidence at the first public hearings of the inquiry, he said a review of the Iraq policy was already under way in Whitehall in anticipation of the arrival of the new Bush administration.
He said that, in discussions with Secretary of State Colin Powell, it appeared the Americans were "thinking very much on the same lines".
He added, however, that others in Washington were already thinking further ahead.
"We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," he said.
He cited an article written by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning that "nothing will change" in Iraq until Saddam was gone.
Opening the hearing, the chairman of the inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, called for a moment of silence for all those from the UK and its allies and those in Iraq who had lost their lives during the past six years.
Sir Peter, who is now the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, said there were three elements to the containment strategy - sanctions, an incentive to lift sanctions if Saddam allowed the United Weapons inspectors to return, and the "no fly" zones over the north and south of the country.
By 2001, however, he said it was already clear that all three strands were "in trouble".
"By 2001 that containment policy was failing and the rate of failure was accelerating," he said.
Sir William Patey, head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office in 2001, said Whitehall was aware of talk about regime change in Iraq from some parts of the new Bush administration.
British officials talked about the possibility but decided not to get involved in it.
Sir William told the inquiry: "In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that."
He explained Foreign Office policy at the time: "We didn't think Saddam was a good thing, and it would be great if he went, but we didn't have an explicit policy for trying to get rid of him."
Simon Webb, who in 2001 was policy director of the Ministry of Defence, said ousting Saddam Hussein was not seriously discussed in meetings British officials held in Washington in early 2001.
He said: "The question of regime overthrow was, I recall, mentioned but it was quite clear that there was no proposition being put in our direction on that."
Sir William also voiced fears in Whitehall that the policies to stop Iraq getting weapons of mass destruction were not working in 2001.
He said: "Saddam was sitting comfortably and the sense (was) that, on the present course, he would eventually escape from the constraints of the containment policy."
Sir Peter added that Mr Powell appeared to be leading US policy on Iraq until the 9/11 attacks.
He said: "Up till then we felt that dealing with the State Department, we were dealing with the people who were forming the policy."
The inquiry heard that those in Washington who supported containing Iraq would have had a stronger argument against the pro-war hawks if the UN Security Council had agreed on a revised list of controlled goods for export to Iraq in 2001.
Sir William said this would "certainly" have satisfied Britain, adding: "It would have been arguable even against the hawks in Washington.
"Colin Powell and the State Department people who supported the containment policy would have had a credible argument.
"I remember conversations with my French and Russian colleagues saying 'You know, if you don't agree to this, where this is going'.
"And each time I remember they always agreed three months too late."
Sir Peter said Iraq was a "major feature" - although not the dominant one - of the JIC's work in 2000 and 2001.
He said the Iraqis were trying achieve at least a "breakout capability" for both chemical and biological weapons.
"In 2001 we were seeing an acceleration of work on missile programmes, we saw increased Iraq efforts to secure material for the nuclear programme and we saw continuing interest in CW (chemical weapons) research and development," he said.
Gordon Brown's spokesman said the Prime Minister would "of course" appear before the inquiry if he was asked, but Mr Brown had not so far been asked.
"The Prime Minister completely supports the inquiry," the spokesman added. "He's very pleased it's going ahead."
The witnesses told the inquiry they believed the UN Security Council would eventually have agreed to revised sanctions on Iraq had it not been for the 9/11 attacks.
Inquiry panel member Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman asked: "If 9/11 hadn't happened, do you think the policy that you had developed to this point could have been sustained?"
Sir Peter replied: "I'm pretty sure we would have stuck to our guns on the policy we had."
He said there was a greater "momentum" behind the new sanctions regime on the eve of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington than Sir Lawrence suggested.
"We had a continuing Russian problem but we were used to dealing with Russian problems on the Security Council," Sir Peter said.
"And we had a degree of confidence that, with time and with adjustments to the resolution to take account of some of their concerns, that we could have got there."
Sir Peter said the 9/11 attacks in the US led to heightened concern in Whitehall that terrorists like al Qaida could obtain weapons of mass destruction.
"I think it gives the whole issue greater political salience and prominence. Not to say that we had any evidence that Iraq was a direct link. Indeed, we did not have any such evidence," he said.
In the US, however, he said the change in thinking was even more marked.
"We heard people in Washington thought there might be some link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden - undocumented. I don't think we saw any evidence of it," he said.
"The tone of voice was more if there turns out to be any link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that is going to have major implications for Iraq and Saddam Hussein."
While the initial response concentrated on Afghanistan - where the 9/11 attacks had originated - Sir Peter said that, from November 2001, he began to hear talk in Washington of a "phase 2" in the "war on terror".
He said the attacks also had the effect of making the Pentagon rather than the State Department the "dominant instrument" in American foreign policy.
Mr Webb said he saw a "striking shift" in US thinking following 9/11.
"The shift in thinking was to say that we cannot afford to wait for these threats to materialise. We must be ready to engage potential threats wherever they emerge," he said.
The inquiry heard that the mood towards Iraq in Washington appeared to change two months after 9/11, following the invasion of Afghanistan.
Sir Peter said: "It was clear from the late autumn, from late November, that Iraq was being considered in a different light in the light of the 9/11 attack."
British ministers did not underestimate the scale of the challenge of taking military action in Iraq, he said.
Sir William said: "I am not aware, right up to March 2002 when I left, of any increased appetite by UK ministers for military action in Iraq."
Former diplomat Sir Roderic Lyne, one of the five-strong inquiry team, questioned why the UK and US came to such different conclusions from other countries about the dangers Iraq posed.
He asked: "With the exception of Kuwait, were the countries in the region banging on doors in London and Washington saying 'We're very worried about Saddam Hussein, please can you do something about him'?"
Sir William replied: "I can't say my door was being knocked on very regularly."
Mr Webb said the 9/11 attacks did not lead to a direct shift towards a policy of regime change in Iraq.
"The focus didn't shift to regime change. It shifted to the weapons of mass destruction problem which, in the case of Iraq, in order to deal with the weapons of mass destruction problem, you would probably end up having to push Saddam Hussein out of power," he said.
Sir Peter said: "I don't remember a clear turning of the corner in American policy in late 2001."
He insisted that the British Government was still thinking in terms of a strengthened sanctions regime.
"We still had our focus on the weapons inspector route and the sanctions-type route. We had heard these noises about regime change. They weren't really impinging on the Whitehall policy debate at that point," he said.
[Source:
Independent]
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