The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
668.
Mr Straw
continued to make clear, as he had suggested in his letter
of
25 March,
that action in support of regime change in Iraq would be justified
only
as a means
to remove the threat from WMD.
669.
SIS activity
was discussed in a meeting with Mr Straw and Mr Wright on
11 April.247
670.
Mr McDonald’s
record of the meeting stated that Mr Straw had noted
that:
“… legally
and politically, regime change in Iraq was justified only as a
means to
the end of
removing the threat of their WMD. If Saddam Hussein were to
allow
in weapons
inspectors, that would change the equation: to seek regime
change
would no
longer be possible for us because our desired end state would
have
been achieved.”
671.
Mr Straw also
agreed with Mr Wright that the focus was on operations which
built
up the
forces of opposition and democracy.
672.
The
evidence offered to the Inquiry and accounts in memoirs provide
some
indications
of the perceptions held by key officials about the UK’s strategy
before
Mr Blair’s
meeting with President Bush at Crawford.
673.
In his memoir,
Sir Christopher Meyer described his view of the position
before
Mr Blair’s
meeting with President Bush.248
He wrote
that the debate about Iraq in
Washington
“had become deafening”, although on the eve of Mr Blair’s visit
the
escalating
violence between Israel and the Palestinians had “reached such a
pitch that
for a while
it pushed Iraq into the background”. It had been clear to him that
President
Bush
was:
“…
determined to implement the official American policy of regime
change; but the
how and
when … were uncertain. It made war probable but not inevitable …
There
were one or
two people in Washington, whose judgement I respected, who
thought
that when
Bush finally realised the scale of his Iraqi ambition, he would see
that the
risk was
too great.
“It was
time to put our fix into American thinking before it coagulated
…”
674.
Sir
Christopher added:
“The
central issue was to influence the Americans. Blair had already
taken the
decision to
support regime change, though he was discreet about saying
so
in public.
It would be fruitless to challenge a fixed … policy that had
bipartisan
support in
the US. It was hard to see how Saddam could be de-fanged
without
247
Minute
McDonald to [SIS10], 12 April 2002, ‘[Name of
Operation]’.
248
Meyer
C. DC
Confidential: The Controversial Memoirs of Britain’s Ambassador to
the U.S. at the Time
of 9/11
and the Run-up to the Iraq War. Phoenix,
2006.
510