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British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page A01
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LONDON -- In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet
with President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a
prescient warning.
"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and
Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."
In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by
British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed
the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to
disaster.
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This article is based on those memos, supplemented by interviews with officials on both sides of the Atlantic -- none of
whom was willing to be cited by name because of the sensitivity of the issue -- and written accounts. Spokesmen for the
Foreign Office and the prime minister's office declined to comment but did not question the authenticity of the
documents.
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