Bush was on a ‘mission’ to ‘rid the world of evil-doers’

Released files also reveal Mandelson’s desperation to return to government and Geldof’s outrage over Africa commission

- GAVIN CORDON

Britain’s ambassador warned that US president George W Bush was bent on the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as part of a “mission” to rid the world of “evildoers”, according to newly released government files.

In January 2003 – two months before US and UK forces launched their fateful invasion - Tony Blair flew to Camp David to urge the president to allow more time for diplomacy to work. However, files released to the National Archives in Kew, southwest London, show that Britain's ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, warned that it had become “politically impossible” to draw back from war unless Hussein surrendered.

British officials were still hoping that the the United Nations Security Council would agree a new resolution specifically authorising the use of military force against Iraq. Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, said that when he met the president he should make the point that a new resolution was “politically essential for the UK, and almost certainly legally essential as well”.

However, the Americans were becoming increasingly impatient with the unwillingness of France and Russia - each of whom had a veto on the council - to agree a resolution so long as UN inspectors were unable to find any evidence of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, the supposed justification for war.

Following Mr Bush's annual State of the Union address to Congress, shortly before Mr Blair's visit, Sir Christopher warned that the options for a peaceful solution had effectively run out.

“It is politically impossible for Bush to back down from going to war in Iraq this spring, absent Saddam's surrender or disappearance from the scene,” he wrote.