1.2  |  Development of UK strategy and options, September 2000 to September 2001

375.  Mr George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, described in his memoir

how a CIA analysis before 9/11 concluded that it would be difficult to remove Saddam

Hussein because of the layers of security around him and that: “Even if we had

managed to take Saddam out, the beneficiary was likely to have been another Sunni

general no better than the man he replaced.”207

376.  General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief CENTCOM, told the

9/11 Commission that in the summer before 9/11 he had been pushing to do more

robust planning on military responses in Iraq, but that President Bush had denied his

request, arguing that the time was not right.208 Gen Franks also told the Commission that

CENTCOM had begun to dust off plans for a full invasion of Iraq.

377.  The then Head of Policy Planning in the US State Department, Mr Richard Haass,

recorded that he submitted a memo to Secretary Powell arguing that “Saddam Hussein

was a nuisance, not a mortal threat”, and that the only sure way of ousting him would be

through prolonged military occupation and nation-building.209

378.  Sir Jeremy Greenstock advised on 6 September that “our goals are to contain Iraqi

military/WMD potential and constrict Baghdad’s financial flexibility, without excessively

harming the Iraqi people”.210 He argued that the issue needed to be given a higher

priority in the US/Russian agenda and noted that Mr Goulty was due to hold talks in

Moscow later that month.

379.  The talks took place on 11 September 2001. Just after they had finished, the news

reached Moscow of the terrorist attacks in the US.

380.  The Inquiry asked Sir Peter Ricketts if the failure to secure agreement to a new

resolution in July changed US policy. He told the Inquiry:

“Yes, I think it probably did. I don’t think it helped Colin Powell’s position in

Washington, frankly, that he had … not been able to give this containment policy

a refresh through the sanctions resolution. I don’t think it led to an immediate shift

in American policy because I remember, as 9/11 happened, we and the Americans

were still working on further pushes with the Russians to see whether we could get

a Goods Review List resolution through in the autumn, but I think it didn’t help the

cause of the State Department that the flagship of this strengthened containment

policy had not succeeded by July.”211

381.  Sir Christopher Meyer told the Inquiry that the Bush Administration had focused

most of its political energy on domestic issues and that, by early September, appeared

207  Tenet G & Harlow B. At the Centre of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. Harper Press, 2007.

208  Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11

Commission Report. Norton. Page 336.

209  Haass RN. War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of two Iraq Wars. Simon & Schuster, 2009.

210  Telegram 1330 UKMis New York to FCO London, 6 September 2001, ‘Iraq’.

211  Public hearing, 24 November 2009, page 36.

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