The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
722.
Asked whether
the commitment had been given for tactical reasons,
Mr Blair replied:
“It wasn’t
so much for tactical reasons … I believed if you wanted to make a
real
change to
this whole issue – this is very important to understanding … my
strategic
thinking
…
“What I
believed we confronted was a new threat … based, not on political
ideology,
but on
religious fanaticism …
“What I was
trying to set out, not for tactical reasons, but for deep strategic
reasons,
is: what
did we need to do to make a successful assault on this ideology
that was so
dangerous?
Therefore, the Middle East Peace Process was absolutely
fundamental
… to
dealing with this issue.”288
723.
Asked if there
was an identity of view at the meeting on how to deal with
Iraq,
Mr Blair
replied:
“We were of
course pushing the UN route … the American view was regime
change
… because
they didn’t believe Saddam would ever, in good faith, give up his
WMD
ambitions
or programmes.”289
724.
Asked if his
view of the means to achieve the objective was different from the
US
because it
was not keen on the UN route, Mr Blair replied:
“We did
have to persuade them [the US], although I think it is fair to say
that, even
at that
meeting [Crawford], President Bush made it clear that America would
have
to adjust
policy if Saddam let the inspectors back in and the inspectors were
able
to function
properly.”290
725.
Addressing the
key messages in his speech at College Station, Mr Blair
drew
the
Inquiry’s attention to his argument that the international
community should not
shrink from
confronting regimes which were “engaged in terror or WMD”. Some
could
be offered
“a route to respectability” but, in relation to Iraq the point he
was making
was that:
“… the
issue was very simple … the need to make absolutely clear that from
now
on you
did not defy the international community on WMD.” 291
726.
Mr Blair added
that when a regime was brutal and oppressive it was a bigger
threat
when it
possessed WMD than “otherwise benign” regimes.292
288
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 48-49.
289
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 50.
290
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 50.
291
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 27-28.
292
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 29.
520