Tony Blair’s decision to invade tore at successive Labour leaders and weakened the intelligence services
On 28 April 2003, just weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Sir John Scarlett, the chair of the joint intelligence committee, went into the office of Tony Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell. “How difficult would it be if it transpired we do not find evidence of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programme?” he asked.
With post-Saddam Iraq already tipping towards civil war, and the casus belli apparently evaporating, Campbell replied: “Very, very, very difficult.”
