The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
a copy of
those papers. I certainly didn’t say they shouldn’t be, but the
content of
those
papers, that is something that was very, very adequately discussed
and the
issue was
clear in the end. There was not a great dispute about what we
thought
about the
facts. The facts were he is continuing to develop WMD. He has
the
intention
of doing that. It is crucial to his regime. On the other hand, so
far we have
contained
him.”
712.
Asked what
Admiral Boyce had advised (at Chequers), Mr Blair told the Inquiry
that
the concern
was to make sure that the UK “got alongside” any US planning and
“did it
[the
military campaign] as quickly as possible”.278
713.
Mr Blair
described the Chequers meeting in his memoir as a
meeting:
“… with
senior army officers … not specifically in preparation for
Crawford, but to
kick around
the basic questions of what military action might entail. There had
been
discussion
about whether our aim was focused on WMD or regime change. I
had
emphasised
that the two were linked, and also that it was hard at this point
to say
that the
nature of the WMD threat specific to Iraq had changed demonstrably
in the
last few
years. It was the assessment of risk that had.” 279
714.
Mr Blair told
the Inquiry that, after the meeting at Chequers and before the
meeting
with
President Bush, there had been “quite an intensive interaction on
this whole issue
… smart
sanctions, because I needed to get a sense of whether this policy …
was really
going to be
a runner or not”.280
715.
Asked whether
by the time of the meeting at Crawford he had reached the
point
of
regarding the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime as a valid
objective of UK policy,
Mr Blair
responded:
“No, the
absolutely key issue was the WMD issue …” 281
716.
Asked what he
intended to achieve at Crawford, Mr Blair replied he
intended:
“… to get a
real sense from the Americans as to what they wanted to do, and
this
would be
best done between myself and President Bush, and really to get a
sense
of how our
own strategy was going to have to evolve in the light of
that.”282
717.
Mr Blair told
the Inquiry that “nothing was actually decided at Crawford”,
and
explained
the importance of a “close and strong relationship” between a
British Prime
Minister
and the President of the US and being able to discuss what the
issues were
“in a very
frank way”. His conversation with President Bush had been “less to
do with
the
specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq” or the Middle
East. The principal
278
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 38.
279
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
280
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 36-37.
281
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 25.
282
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 40.
518