Twenty years on... memories of the Iraq War
“That might have been the case then, Arthur, but we know a lot more now.” A very senior national security official was talking to me, de haut en bas, dismissive, patronising, but still patiently.
It was March 2003 and the US, with the UK in a significant supporting role, was about to invade Iraq. I was a very junior diplomat, still in my mid-twenties. At that stage of my career, having direct contact with people at the top of the British deep state was an unusual opportunity, particularly, as on this occasion, when I had them to myself. So I had taken my chance: my question was: “how come we now think Saddam has all this WMD when a few years ago we’d concluded there was nothing serious left?”
Whilst I was inexperienced, on this particular subject I had a slight advantage: on joining the Foreign Office my first job had been on the Iraq Desk, from 1998 to 2000. At that time, in the prelapsarian world before the 9/11 attacks, the thought of an invasion of Iraq would have seemed outlandish. We had a (very tough) containment policy which held Iraq under the strictest sanctions. Regular UN inspections meant that, if Saddam Hussein had serious weapons programmes, they would be discovered. But he didn’t, and we had intelligence that confirmed this…
Arthur Snell for Not All Doom.
