13.2 |
Conclusions: Resources
20.
In the absence
of a Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for Iraq,
leadership
on strategy
rested with Mr Blair.
21.
The version of
the Ministerial
Code that was
current in 2003 stated that it was the
responsibility
of the initiating department to ensure that proposals involving
expenditure
or
affecting general financial policy were discussed with the Treasury
before being
submitted
to Cabinet or a Ministerial Committee. The result of the discussion
together
with an
estimate of the cost should be included in the memorandum submitted
to
Cabinet or
a Ministerial Committee.
In the
months before the invasion, Treasury officials produced a series of
detailed
analyses of
the likely cost of intervention in Iraq, and the effect on public
expenditure, for
Mr Brown.
In the context of that advice, Treasury officials urged
Mr Brown to intervene in
discussions
on the scale of the UK’s involvement in the military campaign and
on the UK’s
role in a
post‑conflict Iraq.
Mr Brown
had many meetings with Cabinet colleagues, including Mr Blair,
in the run‑up
to the
invasion. Those meetings were often one‑to‑one, and no record was
taken. In the
absence of
those records, the Inquiry is unable to determine whether or in
what way
Mr Brown
raised the issues highlighted by his officials.
22.
The detailed
estimates for military conflict and post‑conflict costs produced by
the
MOD and the
Treasury, and the analyses of the implications of a conflict in
Iraq for public
expenditure
produced by the Treasury, were not sent to Mr Blair or to
Ministers outside
the
originating departments.
23.
Ms Clare
Short, the International Development Secretary, wrote to
Mr Blair on
5 February,
14 February and 5 March 2003, highlighting the potential cost of a
UK
contribution
to an international humanitarian assistance and reconstruction
effort, and
the
potential cost of pursuing an exemplary approach to the provision
of humanitarian
assistance
in the UK’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) in southern Iraq. She also
raised the
issue in
Cabinet on 27 February.
24.
On 14 March,
in response to Mr Blair’s request that Mr Brown should
draw up a
funding
plan for Iraq, the Treasury provided a paper setting out the
potential cost of a
UK contribution
to an international humanitarian assistance and reconstruction
effort.
25.
Detailed
estimates of military costs and the analyses of the implications of
a conflict
for public
expenditure should have been available to Ministers on three
occasions which
shaped the
UK’s involvement in Iraq:
•
In advance
of Mr Blair’s decision on 31 October 2002 that
the UK should
offer a
large scale land force to the US for planning
purposes.
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