3.1 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 9/11 to early January
2002
398.
General Franks
visited Crawford on 28 December 2001 to brief President Bush
on
Iraq.188
Other
members of the national security team were linked by video to the
briefing.
General
Franks informed President Bush that the plan on the shelf required
a six month
build up
and 400,000 troops; he was looking at whether as a result of
lessons from
Afghanistan
fewer conventional ground forces would be needed. He had
“envisioned a
fast
invasion from Kuwait in the south, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the
west, and Turkey
in the
north”.
399.
Secretary
Rumsfeld recorded that General Franks’ plan called for “an
invasion
force
of 145,000 … which would be increased to 275,000 if and as
needed”.189
400.
The report
from the US Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction,
Hard Lessons, stated
that the concept of operations briefed to President Bush
had
been devised
in four video conferences between Thanksgiving (22 November
2001)
and late
December 2001. It focused chiefly on the combat phase and
“anticipated
a rapid
post war handoff to a provisional Iraqi government and a minimal
continuing
401.
President Bush
wrote that after the 28 December briefing he had “asked the
team
to keep
working on the plan”, while observing that:
“… we
should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure
will
succeed in
disarming the regime … But we cannot allow weapons of
mass
destruction
to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to
happen.”191
402.
General Franks
wrote that he gave a further briefing on the developing
plan
to
President Bush and US Principals on 7 February 2002, in which he
identified the
“optimum
operational timing” as “December-mid-March” [2003].192
403.
Following an
inter-departmental meeting chaired by the Cabinet Office
on
14 January
2002, Mr McKane reported to Sir David Manning that the UK
continued to
push for
the introduction of the Goods Review List by 30 May 2002 as
authorised by
resolution
1382 (2001).193
The
prospects for agreement on implementation of
resolution
1284 (i.e.
the return of weapons inspectors) were “slim”. There was a
continued
discussion
about whether the introduction of the GRL should take place before,
or in
parallel
with, clarification of what Iraq had to do to get sanctions
suspended and the
regime
which would be put in place thereafter.
188
Bush
GW. Decision
Points. Virgin
Books, 2010.
189
Rumsfeld
D. Known and
Unknown: A Memoir. Sentinel,
2011.
190
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing Office,
2009.
191
Bush
GW. Decision
Points. Virgin
Books, 2010.
192
Franks T
& McConnell M. American
Soldier. HarperCollins,
2004.
193
Minute
McKane to Manning, 15 January 2002, ‘Iraq’.
379