falsified Iraq war

The British government never believed Saddam Hussein posed a threat to British interests and warned the US that toppling him would lead to "chaos", according to a Foreign Office diplomat closely involved in negotiations in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Damning repudiation of the government's public claims in the run-up to the war is contained in secret evidence to Lord Butler's committee on the abuse of intelligence over Iraq by Carne Ross, a diplomat at Britain's UN mission in New York.

Mr Ross continued: "There was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material.

"At no time did [the government-the British government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK," he told the Butler committee. "On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained ... At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

He said colleagues in other UN delegations told him the UK sold security council resolution 1441 - later used to help justify the invasion - "explicitly on the grounds that it did not represent authorization for war". Yet the USA neo-con Republicans went ahead with their war anyway.