The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
that Colin
Powell who was in charge of reviewing policy could be there and
take
part in
discussions. President Bush … was concerned about our policy, that
we had
sanctions
that the regime was evading but which were impacting on Iraqi
children.
He was
concerned about the vulnerability of US pilots monitoring the
No‑Fly
Zones and
he wanted to get to a more realistic policy, as he described it.
And Colin
Powell set
out some elements which were very close to our own thinking, that
the
widespread
sanctions should be replaced by controls on weapons, [and] that
we
should
tighten the border monitoring around Iraq with a view to ensuring
that those
controls we
retained were effective. But once we were confident that they
were
effective …
the wider sanctions could be suspended and in due course
lifted.
“There was
a debate about the No-Fly Zones that he wanted to pursue, and
some
of the
Condoleezza Rice ideas on regime change, i.e. political elements,
not military
elements,
also featured in the discussion, but the fundamental one was to
narrow
down
sanctions to those that were most important.
“… Prime
Minister Blair welcomed these thoughts and this approach, agreed
that we
should
retain control on Iraq’s oil revenues, but that our broad approach
should be to
narrow the
scope of sanctions to those elements which were really most
important
to us and
at the same time ensure that information about what life would be
like – if
Saddam were
to be removed by the Iraqi people – what would that look like,
[was
available]
…
“So
actually that was quite close alignment of thinking between
President Bush
and Prime
Minister Blair. They agreed that the Foreign Ministers should work
more
closely
together … and that they would stay in touch on the development of
policy
thinking
but there was broad common ground established on Iraq at the
meeting.
There were
very few issues of difference at Camp David and that certainly
wasn’t
211.
Sir John went
on to clarify his reference to “controls on weapons”:
“… what the
Americans were thinking which was in line with our own thinking …
was
that
sanctions should be narrowed to an arms embargo and dual-use goods
that
could be
used in a weapons of mass destruction programme. [Secretary]
Powell
made clear
that he was most concerned about Iraq’s activities on chemical
and
biological
weapons and that there was a range of dual use goods here that
should
be properly
controlled and should be subject to sanctions but the wider range
of
trade
sanctions should be removed.”121
212.
The Inquiry
asked Sir John whether the policy that developed later, to threaten
the
use of
force to secure entry for UNMOVIC inspection teams, was a “gleam in
anybody’s
eye” at
this time. Sir John told the Inquiry:
120
Public
hearing, 10 December 2009, pages 13-15.
121
Public
hearing, 10 December 2009, pages 15-16.
232