Regime change on agenda before 9/11

A secret plan to encourage internal opposition to Saddam Hussein was drawn up by the British Government two years before the invasion of Iraq.

Whitehall officials drafted the "contract with the Iraqi people" as a way of signalling to dissenters in Iraq that an overthrow of Saddam would be supported by Britain.

It promised aid, oil contracts, debt cancellations and trade deals once the dictator had been removed.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's team saw it as a way of creating regime change in Iraq even before the 9/11 attack on New York.

The document, headed "confidential UK/US eyes", was completed on June 11, 2001 and approved by ministers. It has not been published by the Iraq inquiry but a copy has been obtained by the Independent.

It states: "We want to work with an Iraq which respects the rights of its people, lives at peace with its neighbours and which observes international law.

"The Iraqi people have the right to live in a society based on the rule of law, free from repression, torture and arbitrary arrest; to enjoy respect for human rights, economic freedom and prosperity," the contract reads.

"Those who wish to promote change in Iraq deserve our support," it concludes.

A new regime was to be offered "debt rescheduling" through the Paris Club, an informal group of the richest 19 economies, given help from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and handed an EU aid and trade deal. Companies were to be invited to invest in its oil fields.

During his evidence to the inquiry last week, Blair said it was only after 9/11 that serious attention was given to removing Saddam as the attack changed the "calculus of risk".

However, another classified document released by the Iraq inquiry on Sunday showed that No 10 saw the Contract with the Iraqi People as a tool to remove the former Iraqi dictator.

A memo issued in March 2001 by Sir John Sawers, then Blair's foreign policy adviser, cited the document under the heading "regime change".

"The US and UK would re-make the case against Saddam Hussein. We would issue a Contract with the Iraqi People, setting out our goal of a peaceful, law-abiding Iraq," the memo states.

"The Contract would make clear the Iraqi regime's record ... made it impossible for Iraq to meet the criteria for rejoining the international community without fundamental change."

Officials planned to release the contract alongside tougher sanctions against Saddam's regime being negotiated in 2001. When no agreement was reached and the US began to seek more active measures to remove the Baghdad Administration after 9/11, the contract was dropped.

The document was not released by the Iraq inquiry, despite being cited as significant by Foreign Office officials. Sir William Patey, the Government's head of Middle East policy at the time, said it was "our way in the Foreign Office of trying to signal we didn't think Saddam was a good thing and it would be great if he went".

- INDEPENDENT