Last night, Tony Blair’s own defense secretary made devastating accusations about his campaign to remove him from the knighthood.
Geoff Hoon claims that Downing Street ordered him to destroy a memo saying the invasion of Iraq in 2003 could have been illegal.
When the claim emerged in 2015, Sir Tony said it was ‘nonsense’. But Mr Hoon, who was in charge of defence when the war started, insists the allegation was true and he has now given a sensational blow-by-blow account of a No 10 ‘cover-up’.
He says his principal private secretary was told ‘in no uncertain terms’ by Jonathan Powell, Sir Tony’s chief of staff, that after reading the document he must ‘burn it’. Mr Hoon said the MoD mandarin was deeply alarmed by the order – and they defied Downing Street by locking the memo in a safe instead. He:
- Echoes claims that Sir Tony signed a ‘deal in blood’ with George Bush to back the war a year before it began;
- Reveals he was given a prime ministerial dressing down for telling the US that if MPs voted against the war UK troops couldn’t take part;
- Accuses the No 10 press office of being behind notorious ‘45 minutes from doom’ reports that exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein’s military;
- Says he was sacked and ‘hung out to dry’ by Sir Tony to escape blame for the war.
In 2003, Sir Tony Blair met troops at Umm Qasr in Iraq. Geoff Hoon claims that Downing Street ordered him to set a memo that suggested the 2003 invasion in Iraq might be illegal.
When the claim emerged in 2015, Sir Tony said it was ‘nonsense’. But Mr Hoon (pictured), who was in charge of defence when the war started, insists the allegation was true and he has now given a sensational blow-by-blow account of a No 10 ‘cover-up’
The allegations came as the number of people who have signed a petition calling for a U-turn on the former Labour prime minister’s honour approached 600,000.
The Queen has made him a knight companion of the Order of the Garter, Britain’s oldest order of chivalry.
The onslaught from Mr Hoon in his memoir, See How They Run, is all the more damaging because he was one of Sir Tony’s closest personal and political allies. He recounts his surprise at having to remove secret counsel from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general on legality of war during the pre-conflict. The truth was discovered that Lord Goldsmith suggested the war could have been illegal. He later changed his mind, and claimed that it was legal.
Official Chilcot’s report on Iraq War 2016 delivered devastating conclusions about intelligence presentation and military justification.
It raised serious questions about the way Lord Goldsmith hardened up his legal advice days before the war started – after the circulation of the memo that Mr Hoon says he was told to burn.
The inquiry ‘concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory’.
Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands revealed the existence of Lord Goldsmith’s legal advice in his 2005 book, Lawless World. Professor Sands, of University College London, said yesterday: ‘When Lord Goldsmith wrote the legal advice warning that war in Iraq could be illegal, he can hardly have expected that those who received a copy would be told to “burn after reading”.
‘Yet Mr Hoon says that this is what he was told, offering further confirmation of what has long been known – ministers, parliament and the public were misled by Mr Blair into supporting a war that was seen by many as unlawful and a crime. In modern Britain, it seems, such a manifest act of wrongdoing does not preclude the offering of a high-level gong.’
Yesterday, Powell said that he did not tell Mr Hoon to set fire to the legal documents.
The onslaught from Mr Hoon in his memoir, See How They Run, is all the more damaging because he was one of Sir Tony’s (pictured) closest personal and political allies. He describes how he was shocked at the fact that he had to kill secret advice by Lord Goldsmith (an attorney general) on the legality, in order to prevent the outbreak of conflict.
He said that months earlier he had sent copies of a separate ‘minute’ from Lord Goldsmith on the legality of the war to the Whitehall private offices of Mr Hoon and foreign secretary Jack Straw. At the request of Lord Goldsmith he had asked both to ‘destroy the minute – not burn it – and the attorney general’s advice came later’.
When Sir Tony became Labour leader, in 1995, Powell was appointed chief of staff to him. He then took over the No 10 role when he became prime Minister and continued with Powell until his departure from Downing Street.
A source close to Mr Hoon said Mr Powell was wrong and insisted the former defence secretary was told to burn Lord Goldsmith’s ‘legal advice’ sent weeks before the conflict, not a separate minute sent months earlier.
In his memoir, which came out in November, Mr Hoon savages Sir Tony for sacking him in 2005 over the phone: ‘He was unable to give out bad news – even bad news of his own making. He was never honest about how he treated people. I felt drained. Tony never seemed bothered about who got which ministerial jobs.’