(The Guardian) - In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, experts warned Tony Blair that occupying the country and trying to impose a western-style democracy was doomed to failure. He dismissed their objections, convinced that victory was a formality. In the first of three extracts from his new book, Jonathan Steele looks at how Britain went to war unbriefed, unprepared and with no idea of the fallout that would ensue ...

On November 19 2002, four months before the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair made a rare attempt to seek out expert views beyond the circle of his official advisers. Six distinguished academics were invited to Downing Street: three specialists on Iraq, and three on international security. George Joffe, an Arabist from Cambridge University, and Charles Tripp and Toby Dodge, who had both written books on Iraq's history, made opening statements of about five minutes each. They decided not to alienate the prime minister by discussing whether an invasion was sensible or necessary, but only what its consequences might be.

"We all pretty much said the same thing," Joffe recalls. "Iraq is a very complicated country, there are tremendous intercommunal resentments, and don't imagine you'll be welcomed." He remembers how Blair reacted. "He looked at me and said, 'But the man's uniquely evil, isn't he?' I was a bit nonplussed. It didn't seem to be very relevant." Recovering, Joffe went on to argue that Saddam was constrained by various factors, to which Blair merely repeated his first point: "He can make choices, can't he?" As Joffe puts it, "He meant he can choose to be good or evil, I suppose."

Joffe got the impression of "someone with a very shallow mind, who's not interested in issues other than the personalities of the top people, no interest in social forces, political trends, etc".

...
No one in Whitehall rang alarm balls by recalling the difficulties of Britain's imperial involvement with Iraq and the long years of resistance to British occupation, particularly in the largely Shia south. British colonisers had invaded the country, defeated the Ottoman army, and assumed total control in 1918. They abolished the elected municipal councils, imposed a foreign Sunni monarchy, and dealt with resistance by means of massive military repression. Weak on Iraqi history, officials were also poor in forecasting future scenarios. No one pointed out that Saddam's removal would very probably give a boost to Shia Islamists and strengthen the Islamist parties that were allied to Iran. This would make nonsense of hopes for Iraq to become pro-western while remaining, as Saddam's Iraq was, a bastion against the mullahs in Tehran.

Trust Tony's judgment by Bill Clinton (March 18, 2003)