The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
319.
A minute from
Mr Simon McDonald, Mr Straw’s Principal Private
Secretary,
recorded
that:
•
The
‘Options Paper’, and the (Assessments Staff) paper on WMD
Programmes
of Concern,
had been submitted by Mr Ricketts to Mr Straw on 8
March.
•
Mr Straw
had asked for a meeting with officials to discuss “all this” and
for
details of
what happened in 1998, “particularly the sequence of events …
what
was, in
Washington’s view, the legal base for a strike on Iraq … [and] more
detail
about the
Iraqi National Congress”.112
320.
Mr Straw’s
comments on the draft WMD paper and his role in its development
are
addressed
in Section 4.1.
321.
In late March,
as agreed between Mr Blair and Mr Brown, Mr Rycroft
sent
Mr Brown’s
Private Office a copy of the “latest version” of the Cabinet Office
‘Options
Paper’ and
the draft paper for publication on WMD “strictly for the
Chancellor
322.
The letter
also drew Mr Brown’s attention to:
•
the JIC
Assessment of 27 February, ‘Iraq: Saddam Under the
Spotlight’;114
and
•
the CIG
Assessment of 15 March, ‘The Status of Iraqi WMD
Programmes’.115
323.
Sir David
Manning told the Inquiry that the papers were “designed to prepare
the
Prime
Minister for discussions with the President”.116
324.
Mr McKane told
the Inquiry that he had not been directly involved in the
production
of the
‘Options Paper’; his focus had been on the implications of 9/11,
and “there
wasn’t really
a great deal of capacity certainly inside the Secretariat to think
seriously
325.
Mr McKane
stated that, by that time it had been “clear that the US
Government
is shifting
its sights towards Iraq and that the policy we had adopted in the
spring of
the
previous year is not really producing the results that had been
hoped for it”.118
The
‘Options
Paper’ did not “express an opinion on whether we should stick with
containment
or a
tougher form of containment or should start to shift more towards
looking at regime
change and
military intervention”.
112
Minute
McDonald to Ricketts, 11 March 2002, ‘Iraq’.
113
Letter
Rycroft to Bowman, 26 March 2002, ‘Papers on Iraq’.
114
JIC
Assessment, 27 February 2002, ‘Iraq: Saddam Under the
Spotlight’.
115
CIG
Assessment,
15 March 2002, ‘The Status of Iraqi WMD Programmes’.
116
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, page 23.
117
Public
hearing, 19 January 2011, page 33.
118
Public
hearing, 19 January 2011, page 34.
444