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LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country.
In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in No 10 Downing St, key aides and friends of Blair have revealed he repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.
He also agreed to commit troops to the conflict even though President George W. Bush had said Britain could help "some other way".
The disclosures, in a two-part documentary on Britain's Channel 4 TV about Blair's decade in power, will raise questions about Blair's public assurances at the time of the war in 2003 that he was satisfied with the post-war planning. In one of the most significant interviews in the programme, British Commissioner of the European Union, Peter Mandelson, says Blair knew the preparations were inadequate but was powerless to do more.
"Obviously more attention should have been paid to what happened after, to the planning and what we would do once Saddam had been toppled," Mandelson tells presenter Andrew Rawnsley.
"But I remember him saying at the time: 'Look, you know, I can't do everything. That's chiefly America's responsibility, not ours'." Mandelson then criticises his friend: "Well, I'm afraid that, as we now see, wasn't good enough."
Blair's most senior Foreign Affairs adviser at the time of the war, Sir David Manning, Britain's Ambassador to Washington, says, "It's hard to know exactly what happened over the post-war planning. I can only say that I remember the PM raising this many months before the war began. He was very exercised about it."
Manning wrote a highly critical secret memo to Blair. "I think there is a real risk that the [Bush] Administration underestimates the difficulties," it said. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it."
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's envoy to the postwar administration in Baghdad, confirms that Blair was in despair.
"There were moments of throwing his hands in the air: 'What can we do?' He was tearing his hair over some of the deficiencies."
Greenstock adds: "I just felt it was slipping away from us, really, from the beginning. There was no security force controlling the streets. There was no police force to speak for."
Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's National Security adviser, confirms that the President offered Blair a way out.
Bush told Blair: "Perhaps there's some other way that Britain can be involved."
Blair replied: "No, I'm with you".
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