Colin Powell, 84, who died on Monday (18 October), regretted the part he played in persuading so many people that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. He said it was a blot on his record.  

Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003 paved the way for the invasion. (Photo: Powell making his case at the UN)

I wasn’t persuaded. 

On 18 March 2003, I was one of 139 Labour MPs in the UK House of Commons who voted against the war with Iraq. But there weren't enough of us.  

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, won the Commons vote with the help of the Conservative Opposition and got the war he wanted.

The British Foreign Secretary at the time, Jack Straw, like Colin Powell, later regretted the intelligence failures that led to war.

In his autobiography, Last Man Standing, Jack writes: 

“I have been asked a million times since the invasion whether, knowing then what I know now, I would have made the same decision. No, I wouldn’t. How could we have agreed to invade Iraq if we had known that there were no WMD there? But the question serves no purpose. We made a decision based on what we believed to be the case at the time.”

"I couldn't have done it without you."

He goes on:

“Tony thanked me immediately after the vote, adding, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”  This was gracious of him, as I told him, but it made my sense of responsibility all the greater because if I had argued publicly against the war, the UK would not have been involved. This is not conceit. It’s true.” 

Jack’s predecessor as Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook, resigned from the Government over the Iraq war. Robin said that by the time of the Commons vote on 18 March 2003, Blair no longer believed there were WMDs in Iraq.

No Weapons of Mass Destruction

In his memoir, The Point of Departure, Robin recalls a conversation with Blair just days before the crucial Commons vote. 

“Tony did not try to argue me out of the view I expressed that Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction that were designed for strategic use against city populations and capable of being delivered with reliability over long distances. I had now expressed that view to both the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and to the Prime Minister and both had assented in it.” 

He goes on:

“I have no reason to doubt that Tony Blair believed in September (2002) that Saddam really had weapons of mass destruction ready for firing within forty-five minutes. What was clear from this conversation was that he did not believe it himself in March (2003).”   

Canada made the right call

Canada’s Prime Minister at the time, Jean Chrétien, made the right call in keeping Canada out of it all.

He never believed the intelligence the United States claimed to have that Iraq had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraq War was a terrible mistake. 

Tragically, we are still living with the consequences.

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The Report of the Iraq Inquiry was published in 2016. The summary of its findings is here. The US invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003.