The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
232.
Asked if, as
Senator Joe Lieberman had suggested, the Iraqi opposition could
play
the same
role that the Northern Alliance had played in Afghanistan,
Secretary Powell
replied
that was “not clear yet”. He added that Iraq and Afghanistan were
different
countries
with different situations and different kinds of military forces.
The Northern
Alliance
“was a competent military force but needed the support of American
air power”.
The Iraqi
opposition did “not yet rise to that level”.
233.
It has
subsequently been made public that President Bush asked for
further
advice on
the military plans for Iraq in late November.
234.
General Franks
recorded that he was asked on 27 November to give
Secretary Rumsfeld
a “Commander’s Concept”.119
235.
General Franks
confirmed with Secretary Rumsfeld on 4 December that
the
assumed
objective, dependent on the President’s ultimate decision, would be
to
“remove the
regime of Saddam Hussein”.
236.
President Bush
wrote in his memoir that he had asked Secretary
Rumsfeld
to review
the existing battle plans for Iraq in November 2001, adding: “We
needed to
develop the
coercive half of coercive diplomacy.”120
237.
Secretary
Rumsfeld wrote that when asked about involving the CIA in the
planning,
President
Bush had said that:
“… he
didn’t want me to communicate with people outside DoD for the time
being,
and that he
would personally talk to Tenet and others at the right
moment.”121
238.
Asked at what
point the most senior levels of the US Administration had
settled
on the
forcible removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime as their primary
objective,
Sir Christopher
Meyer told the Inquiry:
•
Although he
hadn’t realised at the time, the anthrax scare had “really
steamed
up the
Administration, because they thought the last person who had ever
used
anthrax
aggressively was Saddam Hussein”.
•
Those who
had been arguing that “there was a need to settle accounts
with
Saddam and
do it fast, suddenly got much more traction with the
President”
before the
end of 2001.
•
The
President himself had been “reinvigorated and found a real
purpose
for
his Presidency … which had not been evident before 9/11 …
Everything
119
Franks T
& McConnell M. American
Soldier. HarperCollins,
2004.
120
Bush
GW. Decision
Points. Virgin
Books, 2010.
121
Rumsfeld
D. Known and
Unknown: A Memoir. Sentinel,
2011.
122
Public
hearing, 26 November 2009, pages 34-35.
352