Carne Ross is founder and director of Independent Diplomat, a diplomatic advisory group. Born in 1967, he graduated from the University of Exeter and trained as a negotiator and economist before becoming a British civil servant. Ross's testimony in the Butler inquiry directly contradicted the British position on the justification behind the invasion of Iraq. The University of Exeter is the principal university in the city of Exeter, England. ... For other uses of the term, see Iraq war (disambiguation) The 2003 invasion of Iraq (also called the 2nd or 3rd Persian Gulf War) began on March 20, 2003, when forces belonging primarily to the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq without the explicit backing of the United...

Career

Ross joined the British Foreign Office and worked at the UK embassy in Bonn, Germany before moving to the UK mission to the UN Security Council where he worked for four and a half years. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the United Kingdom abroad. ... A session of the Security Council in progress The United Nations Security Council is the most powerful organ of the United Nations. ...

At the UN, Ross served as the UK delegation's expert on the Middle East. Ross also worked on several important Security Council resolutions such as [SCR 1284] which rewrote the Council's Iraq policy and established UNMOVIC, the weapons inspection body. He also negotiated for the UK the resolution establishing the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the Council's resolution of 12 September 2001 condemning the attacks of the day before. Ross then served as Strategy Coordinator for the UN in Kosovo (UNMIK) where he devised and led a joint UN and government policy to implement a series of standards to improve governance, the rule of law and human rights protection, and advised the Secretary-General's Special Representative on diplomatic and political tactics.

He quit the British civil service in 2004 after 15 years of service.

Testimony on the UK's role in the invasion of Iraq

Ross testified during the Butler inquiry, which investigated intelligence blunders in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Ross testified that Mr. Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. This testimony directly challenged Blair's assertions that the war was legally justified by Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction which posed a threat to British interests. The testimony was published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

Publications

Ross published a book called Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite in 2007. He also wrote a play called The Fox, which enjoyed a short run in New York in early 2001.

External links

• Hurst & Co (Publishers) http://www.hurstpub.co.uk/hurst/biography.asp?auth=237

• Independent Diplomat http://www.independentdiplomat.com/html/staff.htm

• Stephen Moss, "Diplomat at large", The Guardian, 20 June 2005, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,,1510368,00.html

• Colin Brown and Andy McSmith, "Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war", The Independent, 15 December 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2076137.ece