U.K.'s Hoon admits to Iraq mistakes

LONDON, May 2 (UPI) -- Former British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon admitted planning mistakes for Iraq, saying he underestimated the influence of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

In an interview with The Guardian, Hoon, who is now Britain's minister for Europe, said in 2003, he, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would come to agreements only to be surprised by Cheney overturning the plans.

He said British and U.S. officials disagreed over disbanding Iraq's 350,000-member army in an effort to shut out Saddam Hussein's Baathist loyalists.

"I would have called it the other way," Hoon said, adding mistakes were made in planning the invasion's aftermath.

"Maybe we were too optimistic about the idea of the streets being lined with cheering people," Hoon said. "Although I have reconciled it in my own mind, we perhaps didn't do enough to see it through the Sunni perspective."

Hoon said he also regretted the British government's claim in the run-up to war that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which, he said turned out to be false.