London, Feb. 02, 2010, SPA -- Britain's former international development chief said today that she warned then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that the U.S. and its allies were unprepared to deal with the aftermath of invading Iraq, according to AP. Clare Short, who quit as international development secretary shortly after the March 2003 invasion, made a stinging attack on her former boss at Britain's Iraq Inquiry, saying Blair's inner circle was guilty of «secretiveness and deception» over the decision to go to war. Short told the inquiry she was not properly consulted in the weeks before the invasion. Blair preferred to work through informal «little chats» rather than full consultation with the Cabinet, she said. Short also said ministers were misled about whether the war was authorized by international law. The government's top legal adviser at the time, Peter Goldsmith, has told the inquiry he initially believed war would be unlawful without an explicit U.N. Security Council resolution. Days before the war, however, he advised that military action could take place under existing U.N. resolutions. Short said ministers were not made aware of Goldsmith's earlier doubts. «I think for the attorney general to come and say there's unequivocal legal authority to go to war was misleading,» she said. Short released a classified letter she sent Blair two weeks before the invasion in which she warned that reconstruction efforts would be illegal without an explicit U.N. resolution. -- SPA 18:51 LOCAL TIME 15:51 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/744387