The Independent newspaper of London has revealed Britain discussed plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves with some of the world’s biggest oil companies five months before it joined the United States in invading the country in 2003. Citing previously secret documents, the newspaper said at least five meetings were held between British officials and BP and Royal Dutch Shell in late 2002. BP privately told the British Foreign Office at the time that Iraq was “more important than anything we’ve seen for a long time.” The documents were obtained by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt, author of the new book Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq.

Greg Muttitt: “Tony Blair famously said in early 2003, ‘The idea that we’re interested in Iraq’s oil is absurd, it’s one of the most absurd conspiracy theories you can imagine,’ if you remember. And at the same time as he was saying that, there was an internal document, a secret document, in the Foreign Office, which set out British strategy towards Iraqi oil, and it said, 'Britain has an absolutely vital interest in Iraq’s oil.'”