3.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, January to April 2002 –
“axis of evil” to Crawford
544.
Sir Richard
Dearlove had discussed the Chequers meeting with colleagues
on
4 April.205
In response
to questions from the Inquiry, Sir Richard confirmed that
regime
change
didn’t necessarily mean military action and could, at that stage,
have meant a
variety of
things.
545.
Asked whether,
from his memory of Chequers, Sir Richard thought Mr
Blair
would have
taken that view, Sir Richard replied: “I think you have got to look
at it in the
broadest,
most general sense”.
546.
Asked if Mr
Straw and Adm Boyce would have gone along with Mr Blair’s
view,
or were
they more cautious, Sir Richard replied:
“I am not
sure. I think you’ve got to realise that SIS at this point is in a
pretty
extraordinary
position … with an insight into what’s happening in the US which
was
probably
much more profound than anyone else in Government has
got.”
547.
Sir Richard
had also reported to his colleagues that: “WMD would only be
one
of several
arguments pointing to the need to uproot Saddam.”
548.
Sir Richard
had told his colleagues that Mr Blair was seized of the fact that
the
WMD threat
from Libya was more serious than that from Iraq.206
Sir Richard
added
that it had
been about that time the UK “discovered that Libya has an active
nuclear
programme”,
which had been “something of a shock”.
549.
Asked whether
the concerns about WMD in other countries – Iran, North
Korea
and Libya –
were more important than Iraq, and how important WMD was for making
the
case “to
topple the [Iraqi] regime”, Sir Richard told the Inquiry that in
April 2002 concerns
about
Iraq’s WMD were “above the level of routine” and there was “an
assumption that
Iraq’s
interest in WMD” continued.207
Mr Blair
would “push” President Bush to pursue
an active
policy on Iraq “but the initial phase would be to prepare
international public
opinion”.
550.
Asked how to
interpret a reference in the record of the discussion [on 4 April]
to
Mr Blair
wanting to lead, not just support the process of regime change, Sir
Richard told
the Inquiry
he thought it was the former: “keeping our hands on what’s going on
and not
letting the
Americans run away with the ball”.208
551.
Mr Campbell
produced the most detailed account of the meeting. In his diaries,
he
described
it as:
“… a repeat
of the smaller meeting we’d had on Afghanistan. Boyce … mainly
set
out why it
was hard to do anything …
205
Private
hearing, 16 June 2010, pages 38-43.
206
Private
hearing, 16 June 2010, pages 27-28.
207
Private
hearing, 16 June 2010, pages 28-29.
208
Private
hearing, 16 June 2010, page 29.
485