The UK disagreed with the US on the impact of the Iranian role in Iraq, more than a year after the US-led coalition invaded the country, newly released British documents reveal.

The UK Cabinet Office documents also showed that US policy makers were “impatient” with British insistence on engagement to prevent Iranians from pursuing nuclear ambitions.

In March 2003, the United States led a coalition to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein’s regime, citing later-discredited claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to international peace and security.

Iran refused to support the invasion, fearing the US military presence in neighbouring Iraq would be a serious threat to its interests and national security. But Tehran welcomed the fall of Saddam’s regime, which fought an eight-year-long war against Iran from 1980-1988. Gulf countries were worried that Iran would dominate Iraq after ousting its regime. Kuwait, which had been invaded by the Iraqi military in 1990, politically supported the coalition’s military action.

A few months after the invasion, the US-established Iraqi Governing Council (ICG) was endorsed which signed a Temporary Administrative Law (TAL) in Iraq.

Although Iran was supportive of the ICG and ATL, the US remained “deeply suspicious of the Iranian intentions in Iraq”, particularly Tehran’s alleged support for the insurgence of Shia groups targeting the US occupying forces, the documents show.

The American officials told their British counterparts that they were considering action against the agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) whom they believed were active in Iraq. The documents show that the American-British communications occurred in the lead up to the summit between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the US President George W Bush in the White House in........

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