Blair Advised Bush Against Getting Saddam: Official

Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair warned President George W. Bush against removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, according to Blair’s aide.

 LONDON, England — Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair warned President George W. Bush against removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, according to Blair’s aide.

David Manning, Blair’s foreign policy advisor, told Britian’s third inquiry into the Iraq war that the exchange between Blair and Bush occurred during a telephone conversation three days after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in 2001.

Blair’s response to Bush’s claim of a link between Saddam and Al-Qaaeda was that “the evidence would have to be very compelling indeed to justify taking any action against Iraq.”

Manning’s revelation came in the same weeks as Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, said that he believed the invasion itself was “of questionable legitimacy.”

The findings from the inquiry into Britian’s role in the Iraq conflict is due by the end of 2010.