Ex-diplomat plays down secret Iraq deal claim
Updated on 29 January 2010
A former British ambassador today distanced himself from claims Tony Blair "signed in blood" a secret deal to join forces with the United States in taking military against Iraq.
Sir Christopher Meyer, ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003, used the "signed in blood" expression when he appeared before the Iraq Inquiry panel in November, when talking about the meeting between Blair and Bush at the US president's Crawford ranch in 2002.
Blair faced questions today over whether a deal to invade Iraq was secretly agreed at Crawford, but told the panel members that Meyer was not at the "critical meeting", so could not know.
Many commentators have highlighted the Crawford meeting – held one year before Britain and the US invaded Iraq – as a crucial turning point in Blair's foreign policy outlook, in the road to war.
Meyer told Channel 4 News: "I have had Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell, and now Tony Blair basically criticising me or dismissing me for something I didn't really say. I am sure psychologists would have something interesting to say about that.
"I had always found it very striking how Blair had talked about the 'blood debt' that Britain owed to the US, that's why I used that phrase - but I never said that a deal had been done.
"I don't know to this day why it has been interpreted in this manner.
"If the panel members are under the impression that I said a deal was done that's wrong, I said perfectly the opposite, I did not know what deal had been done... I was not there [Crawford], I was not involved."
The former ambassador's appearance before the inquiry last year had created the impression with some that he thought a secret Blair-Bush deal had been done at Crawford, but he told Channel 4 News such an assumption was wrong.
The exact extended answer he gave at the Iraq Inquiry in November was: "I'm not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood, at the Crawford ranch."
He told Channel 4 News today: "A bunch of people seem to think I said a deal was done. Tony Blair is right to suggest I didn't know what was going on, because I didn't – I tried to make this point clear to the inquiry when I appeared.
"No-one knows what was agreed and we still don't know. There were strong clues in the speech Blair made after Crawford – talking about regime change – and a Cabinet memo - but that’s it."
