The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
360.
Mr Jonathan
Powell told the Inquiry that when Sir David Manning returned
from
Washington,
he had reported that Dr Rice had assured him that the
Administration had
“no
immediate plans for action in Iraq”.164
361.
In a minute on
10 December, the FCO Counter-Terrorism Policy
Department
(CTPD)
stated:
“We have
dropped plans to produce a paper on … Iraq, as our objectives there
are
better
pursued in different ways.”165
362.
In a meeting
with Secretary Powell in London on 11 December, Mr Blair
repeated
his view
that “we needed a clever strategy to deal with Saddam”; and
identified the
important
consequences of success in Afghanistan.166
363.
Mr Blair and
President Bush spoke on 11 December but there is no mention of
Iraq
or Phase 2
of the war on terrorism in the record of the
discussion.167
364.
Asked what he
had said to President Bush, Mr Blair replied:
“… when you
get to my conversation with President Bush … I am saying to
him
‘Look, we
are going to have to deal with this issue. We accept that. After
September
11, the
calculus of risk has changed and changed fundamentally. We cannot
allow
Saddam
Hussein to be in breach of UN resolutions.’
“So I am
signalling that I am up for the policy of handling and dealing with
this issue
and we are
going to be with America in doing that.
“We then I
think from memory had a discussion about all sorts of different
aspects
of that and
how it might be done … I was in no doubt it would be beneficial for
the
world to
get rid of Saddam Hussein and to get rid of his
regime.”168
“On the
other hand, I was saying ‘This is going to be difficult precisely
because of
the things
listed in the paper from the SIS officer’. Those were:
•
The lack of
response to the re-emergence of Iraq as a serious
regional
power.
•
Alarm at
the way that Iraq was eroding the sanctions regime and evading
it.
•
Iraq’s
success in seeing us [the US and UK] off with propaganda since
the
end of the
first Gulf Conflict.
164
Public
hearing, 18 January 2010, page 17.
165
Minute
Bloomfield to Prentice, 10 December 2001, ‘Counter-Terrorism: Phase
Two: Country CT
Strategies’.
166
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 11 December 2001, ‘Call by Colin Powell on the
Prime Minister:
War on
Terrorism’.
167
Email
Cabinet Office [junior official] to Hammond, 23 June 2014, ‘BB8
issues’.
168
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 34-35.
372