The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

19. By early March, the US Administration was not prepared to allow inspections

to continue or give Mr Blair more time to try to achieve support for action. The attempt

to gain support for a second resolution was abandoned.

20. In the Inquiry’s view, the diplomatic options had not at that stage been exhausted.

Military action was therefore not a last resort.

21. In mid‑March, Mr Blair’s determination to stand alongside the US left the UK

with a stark choice. It could act with the US but without the support of the majority

of the Security Council in taking military action if Saddam Hussein did not accept

the US ultimatum giving him 48 hours to leave. Or it could choose not to join US‑led

military action.

22. Led by Mr Blair, the UK Government chose to support military action.

23. Mr Blair asked Parliament to endorse a decision to invade and occupy a sovereign

nation, without the support of a Security Council resolution explicitly authorising the use

of force. Parliament endorsed that choice.

24. President Bush decided at the end of 2001 to pursue a policy of regime change

in Iraq.

25. The UK shared the broad objective of finding a way to deal with Saddam Hussein’s

defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and his assumed weapons of mass

destruction (WMD) programmes. However, based on consistent legal advice, the UK

could not share the US objective of regime change. The UK Government therefore set

as its objective the disarmament of Iraq in accordance with the obligations imposed in a

series of Security Council resolutions.

26. Before the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 (9/11), the UK was pursuing

a strategy of containment based on a new sanctions regime to improve international

support and incentivise Iraq’s co‑operation, narrowing and deepening the sanctions

regime to focus only on prohibited items and at the same time improving financial

controls to reduce the flow of illicit funds to Saddam Hussein.

27. When UK policy towards Iraq was formally reviewed and agreed by the Ministerial

Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy (DOP) in May 1999, the objectives towards

Iraq were defined as:

“... in the short term, to reduce the threat Saddam poses to the region including

by eliminating his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes; and, in

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