3.3 |
Development of UK strategy and options,
April to July 2002
form an
important part of that campaign. He suggests that the Prime
Minister
may like to
call an early meeting of a small group of colleagues to consider
how
best to get
the US to address the strategic, as opposed to the narrowly
military,
dimension. The freestanding
military option is not a viable political proposition.
“Meanwhile,
officials from the MOD, FCO and Cabinet Office should do some
more
homework
urgently to put the Prime Minister and you in a better position to
influence
the
President’s and Condi Rice’s thinking … before the updated CENTCOM
plan
is briefed
to the President in the course of August. Mr Hoon will also review
the
possibilities
for contact with the US Defense Secretary.”
150.
Mr Watkins’
letter was paraphrased in a briefing note for Mr Blair
from
Sir David
Manning, which drew attention to:
•
the comment
on the policy void in which military planning had taken
place;
•
the scale
and cost of the US plans;
•
the
fragility of the logistic concept;
•
US
ignorance of Iraqi WMD locations;
•
the lack of
clarity about what the US might ask the UK to do;
•
the need
for basing in the region; and
•
the use of
British bases in Diego Garcia and Cyprus.68
151.
Sir David also
reported Mr Hoon’s suggestion for an early meeting and
advised
that
funding and legal issues would need to be considered “before we go
much
further”.
He proposed Mr Brown, Mr Straw, Sir Richard Wilson, Sir Richard
Dearlove,
Chief of
the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Mr John Scarlett, Chairman
of the JIC,
and Lord Goldsmith
should attend.
152.
Manuscript
notes on the minute by Mr Powell suggested to Mr Blair that Mr
Brown
and Sir
Richard Wilson should be removed and Adm Boyce and Lt Gen Pigott
added;
and that
those changes had been agreed by Mr Blair.69
153.
Asked why Mr
Brown and Ms Short had not been invited to the meeting,
which
took place
on 23 July, Mr Blair told the Inquiry:
“We were
discussing then what was likely to happen in relation to the
politics and
the diplomacy,
particularly in relation to the military …
“We were
also discussing this at Cabinet level too, and obviously we were in
close
touch with
the Treasury and so on … at that moment, the single most
important
areas were
diplomacy and … military planning …
68
Minute
Manning to Prime Minister, 3 July 2002, ‘Iraq’.
69
Manuscript
comments Powell on Minute Manning to Prime Minister, 3 July 2002,
‘Iraq’.
29