3.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, January to April 2002 –
“axis of evil” to Crawford
704.
Mr Rycroft
added that Mr Blair would have seen the advice he had received
from
the Defence
and Foreign Secretaries as “caution verging on sort of
unnecessarily
705.
Mr Blair
set out his position on the preparations for Crawford and
the
position he
adopted in his discussions with President Bush in his
evidence
to the Inquiry
in 2010 and 2011, and in his memoir in 2010.
706.
Mr Blair told
the Inquiry that, after the Cabinet Office ‘Options Paper’ in
March
2002, there
were “a whole series of government discussions about smart
sanctions”.273
707.
Asked how the
options on Iraq had been identified and reviewed, Mr Blair told
the
Inquiry
that a decision had been taken after 11 September:
“… that
this issue had to be confronted … It could be confronted by an
effective
sanctions
framework. It could be confronted by Saddam allowing the
inspectors
back in to
do their work properly and compliance with the UN resolutions, or,
in the
final
analysis … if sanctions could not contain him and he was not
prepared to allow
the
inspectors back in, then the option of removing Saddam was
there.”274
708.
Asked whether
he had had a meeting to discuss the ‘Options Paper’ and
take
decisions
on it, Mr Blair told the Inquiry he had talked to Mr Straw and Mr
Hoon, there
had been a
meeting of “the key people to decide where we were then going to
go”, and
the meeting
at Chequers had been a “very structured debate”.275
709.
Mr Blair
confirmed that the ‘Options Paper’ had not been discussed in
Cabinet.276
710.
Mr Blair
subsequently told the Inquiry:
“Well, the
‘Options Paper’ really said two things. It said you can either go
for
containment.
We can’t guarantee that that’s successful. He will probably
continue
to develop
his programmes and be a threat, but nonetheless that is one option.
The
other
option is regime change.”277
“… there’s
nothing in those papers … that wasn’t surfaced as part of the
discussion
… [which]
all the way through was: what is the judgment? … That was certainly
part
of the
discussion that was going on in Cabinet. Now you can say, and I
would be
perfectly
happy if you did say, look it is better to disclose all those or
give everybody
272
Private
hearing, 10 September 2010, pages 12-13.
273
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 14.
274
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 18-19.
275
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 21-22.
276
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 23.
277
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, page 12.
517