A trickle of documents from the Chilcot Inquiry have been released today, among which is
the written witness statement of former Europe Minister Denis MacShane.
It’s rather intriguing. MacShane told the inquiry that it was his understanding that France ‘would not leave the US, Britain and other allies alone in any action against Saddam’ and that President Chirac then vetoed military action in the UN at the stroke of the twelfth hour, apparently against the wishes of his colleagues and France’s political establishment.
MacShane says he gained this impression after speaking to a senior French official at the Anglo-French summit at Le Touquet on 4 February 2003, six weeks before the invasion. MacShane insists that ‘British officials present received similar assurances’. He also says that important French foreign policy experts and former ministers, including Pierre Lelouche, Dominic Moisi and Bernard Kouchner, ‘all supported US intervention’.
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