Top British ex-diplomat blasts US invasion of Iraq

[Barrett808]

LONDON (AFP) - One of Britain's most senior former diplomats has branded the US invasion of Iraq "politically illegitimate" in an incendiary new book that the government has moved to block, a British newspaper reported.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was British ambassador to the United Nations during the run-up to the 2003 invasion, makes the comments in a book entitled "The Cost of War", excerpts of which were quoted in Sunday's The Observer.

UN negotiations "never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration", he charges in an extract published in the paper.

...

Officials are said to have been "deeply shocked" by his candid accounts of talks with Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and of deliberations at the UN Security Council, the paper reports.

(more)

http://tinyurl.com/bccst

(http://p225.news.mud.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050716/wl_uk_afp/britainiraqus_050716225224)

[goforit]

1. Timing is everything.

[nine23]

2. RE: "awkward diversion"? Funny,

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking while Colin Powell was holding up that vial of icing sugar at the UN prior to the invasion.

[rooboy]

3. What stuns me is that Greenstock HELPED the US get past the UN.

:mad:

[punpirate]

4. Here's the original Observer article...

... which also says that Greenstock believes "honourable decisions" were made to get rid of Hussein:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1530311,00.html

Most of his ire seems to be directed at the CPA's handling of post-invasion Iraq and at Paul Bremer, from the sound of it.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Where the Hell was he before the invasion, er, liberation?

Everyone's jumping on the bandwagon... after the horse has died.

[OKthatsIT]

6. make way for big bale out, creating distance from Blair-Bush

you watch...both in UK and US.

[wli]

7. "politically illegitimate?" try illegal, under US and international law

[Barrett808]

8. Yes, it seems like careful word parsing is the order of the day n/t