Saddam Hussein’s London lawyer claims dictator tried to strike peace deal with Tony Blair in run-up to Iraq War
Lawyer Sarosh Zaiwalla said he tried to get the former Prime Minister to come to an agreement
THE Iraq War "could have been prevented" but Tony Blair was not willing to negotiate with Saddam Hussein, according to the former dictator's lawyer.
Sarosh Zaiwalla has today revealed he tried to get former Prime Minister Blair to come to an agreement with Hussein to prevent the Iraq war.
He said while Britain and America were preparing to go to war he was asked by the Iraqi government to negotiate a deal so it could be avoided.
The lawyer, now 68, met with Blair and strongly suggested to him that Hussein would agree to be 'sent to one of the islands with a few million dollars'.
Mr Zaiwalla met with Blair, but after 15 minutes of listening to his suggestions, Blair refused to meet with the Iraqi government.
Mr Zaiwalla, who was Blair's boss when he was a junior barrister at his firm, said a deal was never achieved because the former Prime Minister already had a "closed mind".
He also believes because the Iraqi government were prepared to negotiate, if a deal was struck it would have prevented the war.
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Mr Zaiwalla, who is a senior partner at Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors in London, said: "I do believe it could have prevented the war.
"They were prepared to negotiate.
"I spoke to Tony about it and he listened to me for about 15 to 20 minutes.
"All options were open for discussion. I had mentioned this precisely to him when I met him. He said 'write to me'. I was acting for the Iraqi government.
"I was consulted on a different issue and they said to me can you get them talking.
"There was a possibility at that time. They were prepared to negotiate.
"The Iraqi government said that they would send a diplomatic signal in the usual way."
Mr Zaiwalla, of Kingston Gorse, near Littlehampton, West Sussex, first wrote to Mr Blair in April 2002, receiving a letter from his office the same month.
He then wrote again to the Prime Minister in March 2003, urging him: "these are troubled times and for the sake of world peace no channel of communication should go unexplored".
His offer was declined again.
When asked whether Blair had a pre-existing agreement with President of the USA George Bush, he said: "I didn't have any evidence of that, but it was clear they had a closed mind."
However, though Mr Zaiwalla believes the war should have been avoided, he said the blame should not be pinned solely on Blair.
He said: "I was no stranger to Tony, he worked for me as a barrister.
"He knows me very well and I consider him a friend, but it was clear he had a closed mind.
"The Iraqis wanted to see if they could find a way out of this, but they were not successful.
"You can't just blame Tony Blair. It was a policy decision taken by the western powers to bring in democracy, but Iraq wasn't right for democracy at that time.
"The second Gulf war might well have been avoided if there had been a genuine will on the part of those in power at that time to avoid the war and with it hundred and thousands of lives would not have been lost and Europe would not now be facing the refugee problem.
"The Iraqi regime at that time was keen to find a face saving way to exit but there was a closed mind on our side to explore any such possibility. This was most unfortunate.
"However, as the Prime Minister has said, it is our and the state's duty to learn from previous errors, and the world must now learn to address future potential conflicts and international relations with the utmost care and an open mind."
Sir John Chilcot said the invasion of Iraq was not the “last resort” and British forces were committed to the area “before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted”.
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