The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
62.
Mr Alastair
Campbell, Mr Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy,
described
a meeting
in No.10 on 19 February as a “‘Phase 2’ war meeting” for Mr Blair
with Sir
David
Manning, Sir Richard Dearlove, Mr Peter Ricketts, FCO Political
Director, Mr Tom
McKane,
Deputy Head of OD Sec, Mr Powell and himself.24
63.
Mr Campbell
wrote that Mr Blair was:
“… not sure
if the Americans had taken all the decisions. He wanted to be in
a
position to
influence their strategy, which we would project as being about
fighting
poverty and
taking aid, but which they [the US] would see as fighting for
their
values. He
also wanted to commission papers on Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and
the
European
trade in WMD. He wanted work done on how to rejuvenate the
MEPP
[Middle
East Peace Process]. He assumed that by the time of our visit to
the States
in April,
there was chance the Americans would be casting around wider, and
he
wanted all
the facts at his fingertips. He felt that the political situation
would be
different
and internationally a lot harder for the Americans than things were
post
September
11, if they were thinking of going for any of the other
countries.”
64.
There is no
No.10 record of the meeting.
65.
Mr McKane told
the Inquiry that, following the meeting on 19 February, “a
large
number of
papers” had been commissioned for the meeting between President
Bush
and Mr
Blair, at Crawford, Texas, in early April 2002.25
•
“Iraq
A paper
analysing the options, the state of play on the UN resolutions,
the
legal base
and the internal dimension – the state of the opposition groups
etc.”
•
“WMD
A paper for
public consumption setting out the facts on WMD …”26
67.
An article
appeared in The
Observer on 24 February
reporting that the Government
was
planning to publish detailed evidence of Iraq’s nuclear
capabilities.27
A
“senior
No.10
official” was reported to have said that the meeting between Mr
Blair and
President
Bush in April would “finalise Phase 2 of the war against terrorism”
and: “Action
against
Iraq” would be “at the top of the agenda”. As with Usama Bin Laden
and the
war in
Afghanistan, it would be necessary to maintain public and
international support
for
military action against Saddam Hussein. That was a “public
persuasion” issue
which would
be tackled “in the same way” as the unprecedented “indictment”
against
Usama Bin
Laden published in October 2001.28
24
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to Iraq.
Hutchinson,
2012.
25
Public
hearing, 19 January 2011, page 34.
26
Minute
McKane to Manning, 19 February 2002, ‘Papers for the Prime
Minister’.
27
The
Observer, 24
February 2002, Blair and
Bush to plot war on Iraq.
28
Paper
No.10, 4 October 2001, ‘Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities
in the United States,
11 September
2001’.
398