The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
537.
Mr Straw was
overseas at the UK/Caribbean Summit at that time, but no
FCO
representative
was present.199
538.
Lt Gen Pigott
produced a set of briefing slides at the meeting.200
They
identified a
provisional
end state for military action against Iraq which was defined
as:
“A
law-abiding Iraq which is reintegrated in the international
community, that does
not
threaten its neighbours, or global security.”
539.
The slides
prepared for Lt Gen Pigott also contained elements related
to
Afghanistan,
the need to eliminate international terrorism as a force in
international
affairs and
a series of questions in relation to the goals and approach of any
military
action in
Iraq, including that if the US wanted the UK to be involved in any
military action,
the UK
would need to be involved in the planning.
540.
Dr Simon
Cholerton, Assistant Director in the MOD Secretariat (Overseas),
advised
Sir Kevin
Tebbit:
“… we
believe that the key issue for the PM to raise with President Bush
is the
outcome the
US would seek from any military action: would it simply be [to]
control
Iraq’s WMD,
remove Saddam from office (in the knowledge that a successor
regime
may well
continue with Iraq’s WMD programmes) or is it necessary to install
a
replacement
regime? The answer to this question will be key to military
planning;
how action
would fit into the framework of international law and help hugely
in
subsequent
work to influence US policy.”201
541.
Mr Blair wrote
in his memoir that Adm Boyce and Lt Gen Pigott:
“… gave a
presentation. They warned it could be a bloody fight and take a
long time
to remove
Saddam. The US were engaged in preliminary planning, but it was
hard
to read
where they were going with it. We needed to get alongside that
planning and
542.
Mr Powell told
the Inquiry that the meeting at Chequers was a “key meeting …
to
talk about
what he [Mr Blair] should do at Crawford”.203
543.
Sir David
Manning told the Inquiry that he did not remember the Chequers
meeting
as
“outstandingly important”, though he recollected that “things
accelerate in the second
quarter of
the year”.204
There had
been a similar meeting on Afghanistan which had
explored
the feasibility of military action.
199
FCO Daily
Bulletin, 2 April 2002.
200
Email
DCDS(C)/MA2 to CDS REGISTRY-5 and PS/PUS, 28 March 2002, ‘Iraq
Briefing Slides’.
201
Minute
Cholerton to PS/PUS [MOD], 8 April 2002 [date is incorrect], ‘Iraq:
Meeting with Prime Minister
at
Chequers’.
202
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
203
Public
hearing, 18 January 2010, page 19.
204
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, pages 34-35.
484