The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
likely to
receive clear American proposals on the military aspects … We
should try to
do the work
for them on sanctions.”
220.
Mr Blair told
Cabinet on 1 March that the visit had gone well and that a number
of
issues,
including Iraq, had been discussed.124
221.
Mr Blair gave
no detail of the discussion at Camp David in his memoir but
he
wrote
that:
“In the
months that followed the visit … I probably thought more about Iraq
than he
[President
Bush] did.”125
222.
MOD and
Cabinet Office officials met on 23 February to probe the
assumptions
underlying
the military assessment of the additional forces required to defend
Kuwait in
the absence
of the southern NFZ.126
223.
Mr McKane
reported the conclusions of the meeting:
“The
message for Ministers which comes out of all of this is that,
provided US and
UK forces
remain in theatre, it is unlikely that Saddam would seek to exploit
the
abolition
of the southern No-Fly Zone by attacking Kuwait. However, there
remains
a slight
possibility that Saddam would order an attack and the southern
No-Fly Zone
plays an
important part in our plans for defending Kuwait in such
circumstances …
“In judging
whether the risk of an attack by Saddam would be so small that we
could
afford to
abolish the southern No-Fly Zone, Ministers would have to keep in
mind
that, in
the absence of the No-Fly Zone, it might be impracticable to
maintain our
existing
air forces in the region.”
224.
Mr Webb told
the Inquiry that the MOD was concerned about the greater cost
of
alternative
methods to protect Kuwait:
“… the
No-Fly Zones … had a side benefit of risk reduction. Because we
were flying
over
southern Iraq most of the time, we knew what the military situation
was on the
ground, and
that gave us some time, if there had started to be a build-up of
another
repeated
attack on Kuwait … it would have given us the opportunity to
interdict any
ground
force movements which were the start of an attack on Kuwait and
some time
to
reinforce, but those two things together actually allowed us to be
in the rather
comfortable
position of having a not very expensive military operation … It
allowed
us to
manage without big ground force deployments …” 127
124
Cabinet
Conclusions, 1 March 2001.
125
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
126
Letter
McKane to Webb, 28 February 2001, ‘Iraq’.
127
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, pages 49-50.
234