3/11/2003

U.K. Prime Minister “Tony Blair was offered a way out of attacking Iraq at a secret meeting with his foreign secretary Jack Straw eight days before the invasion [March 11, 2003], according to documents lodged with the Chilcot inquiry [the British public inquiry into their involvement in the war in Iraq]… An anonymous official told the inquiry: ‘I recall a meeting with the prime minister where the foreign secretary [Straw] made the argument…for the UK military not being involved. The point the foreign secretary was making, in my view, was that this was the final opportunity to decide on a different track–advising the prime minister that he still had a chance to avoid it if he wanted to… The argument he was making was more in terms of, *If you want to avoid your own resignation, prime minister, you still have an opportunity and here it is. You have a way out and why don’t you take it?* ‘ ”

 – Richard Norton-Taylor, “Tony Blair Had Way Out of Iraq Invasion, Chilcot Inquiry Told,” The Guardian, Jan. 20, 2011