Ex-UK minister: US unprepared for aftermath of war

Britain's former international development chief said Tuesday that she warned then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that the U.S. and its allies were unprepared to deal with the aftermath of invading Iraq.

Clare Short, who quit as international development secretary shortly after the March 2003 invasion, made a stinging attack on her former boss at Britain's Iraq Inquiry, saying Blair's inner circle was guilty of "secretiveness and deception" over the decision to go to war.

Short told the inquiry she was not properly consulted in the weeks before the invasion. Blair preferred to work through informal "little chats" rather than full consultation with the Cabinet, she said.

Short also said ministers were misled about whether the war was authorized by international law.

The government's top legal adviser at the time, Peter Goldsmith, has told the inquiry he initially believed war would be unlawful without an explicit U.N. Security Council resolution. Days before the war, however, he advised that military action could take place under existing U.N. resolutions.

Short said ministers were not made aware of Goldsmith's earlier doubts.

"I think for the attorney general to come and say there's unequivocal legal authority to go to war was misleading," she said.

Short released a classified letter she sent Blair two weeks before the invasion in which she warned that reconstruction efforts would be illegal without an explicit U.N. resolution.

The U.S. and its allies were ill-prepared for post-invasion humanitarian needs, Short said. She said the U.S. Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance was "understaffed, under-resourced and under-prepared for the scale of the challenge."

Short said Blair refused requests to delay the invasion, despite warnings that the military and aid officials were not ready.

"I think he was so frantic to be with America that all that was thrown away," she said.

Senior military officers have told the inquiry that British troops lacked critical equipment, including body armor, at the start of the conflict.

Short resigned in May 2003 to protest the handling of the war. She said she wished now she had resigned before the conflict.

"If I knew then what I know now, I would have," Short said.

Britain is holding its third and widest-ranging inquiry into the conflict, which triggered huge protests and left 179 British troops dead before the country's forces withdrew from Iraq last year.

The inquiry, which is scheduled to report by the end of the year, won't apportion blame or establish liability, but will offer recommendations on how to prevent errors in future conflicts.

Blair testified to the inquiry last week, saying he stood by his decision to back the U.S. in removing Saddam Hussein because the Iraqi dictator was a threat to his region and the world.