The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
100.
Secretary
Rumsfeld ordered a review of existing US war plans for Iraq
on
101.
Subsequent
accounts by key members of the US Administration set out how
they
considered
the context for US policy on Iraq had changed following the
attacks.
102.
In remarks to
the press at the White House during Mr Blair’s visit on 31
January
2003,
President Bush said:
“After
September the 11th, the doctrine of containment just doesn’t hold
any water
… My vision
shifted dramatically after September the 11th, because I now
realize
the stakes.
I realize the world has changed.”53
103.
In his memoir
President Bush wrote that the “lack of a serious response”
to
previous Al
Qaida attacks had been interpreted:
“… as a
sign of weakness and an invitation to attempt more brazen attacks
…
After 9/11,
I was determined to change that impression.”54
104.
Describing the
impact of the attacks on his view on Iraq, President Bush
wrote:
“Then 9/11
hit, and we had to take a fresh look at every threat in the world.
There
were state
sponsors of terror. There were sworn enemies of America. There
were
hostile
governments that threatened their neighbors. There were nations
that
violated
international demands. There were dictators who repressed their
people.
And there
were regimes that pursued WMD. Iraq combined all those threats
…
…
“Before
9/11, Saddam was a problem America might have been able to
manage.
Through the
lens of the post-9/11 world, my view changed … I could only
imagine
the
destruction possible if an enemy dictator passed his WMD to
terrorists. With
threats
flowing into the Oval Office daily – many of them about chemical,
biological
or nuclear
weapons – that seemed like a frighteningly real possibility … The
lesson
of 9/11 was
that if we waited for a danger to fully materialize, we would have
waited
too long. I
reached a decision: We would confront the threat from Iraq, one
way
or
another.”
52
Feith
DJ. War and
Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on
Terrorism.
HarperCollins,
2008; Bowen
SW Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing
Office,
2009.
53
The White
House, 31 January 2003, Remarks by
the President and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
54
Bush
GW. Decision
Points. Virgin
Books, 2010.
330