Minister insists UK wanted diplomatic solution on Iraq

The first former Cabinet minister to give evidence to the Iraq war inquiry insisted yesterday that Britain had always wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis before the 2003 invasion.

Former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon's testimony kicked off appearances from a series of ex-Cabinet ministers before the eagerly awaited questioning of former Prime Minister Tony Blair on January 29.

Hoon said Britain had always hoped diplomatic efforts to disarm Iraq through the United Nations would bear fruit and he doubted that Mr Blair had ever given the United States "unconditional" support for military action.

Mr Blair's influential spokesman at the time of the war, Alastair Campbell, told the inquiry last week that Mr Blair had sent secret notes to then US President George W. Bush in the months before the March 2003 invasion.

Mr Campbell said that, while Mr Blair was pressing President Bush to seek a diplomatic solution, he indicated in his notes he would support military action if the UN route failed.

Mr Hoon was asked whether he, as defence minister, would not have expected to have been consulted if Mr Blair were writing notes committing Britain to military action.

"I would have been and that is why I do not believe he was ever unconditionally committing us to anything," Mr Hoon said. "I think that right up until the vote in the House of Commons our attitude towards the use of force was always conditional."

Mr Hoon was referring to the March 2003 vote in which British lawmakers backed the use of military force against Saddam Hussein's regime.

On Mr Blair's talks with Mr Bush at the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, Mr Hoon said he had not been briefed directly on what was said at the meeting.

Declassified letters released by the inquiry show that Peter Goldsmith, then Attorney General - the government's top legal adviser - warned Mr Hoon in April 2002 there were "considerable difficulties" in justifying military action.

But Mr Hoon said that by March 7, 2003, shortly before the US-led invasion, Mr Goldsmith was advising the government that an invasion would not be illegal.

"I was clear that his conclusion was that there was a legal justification for military action," Mr Hoon told the inquiry. "He says so categorically." Mr Goldsmith is due to give evidence on January 27, two days before Blair. Mr Hoon said he had believed Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) was "content" with the controversial claim in a government dossier used to make the case for war that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

David Kelly, an MoD weapons expert who believed he may have been the source of the 45-minute claim, later committed suicide. Officials had confirmed his name as the source to some journalists.

Mr Hoon admitted he had not seen the 45-minute claim before it appeared in the draft dossier but, after seeking and receiving a satisfactory explanation from officials, thought little more of it