The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
would be
“‘yes’ with certain conditions”. The key point for Mr Blair to note
was that US
action
could take place “very quickly, as early as November”.
321.
Agreeing the
objective for military action would be “useful”, but it begged
the
question of
the “strategic
policy framework in which to
take military action in pursuit of
that
objective”. “In particular a framework” was “required to set the
conditions for military
action
including the necessary justification in international law”. That
was “important
because it
may well constrain our ability to support US action”.
322.
Adm Boyce had
directed that UK planning should concentrate on two
“packages”:
a
supporting/enabling package, including basing, maritime and air
assets, in which “the
only land
contribution would be SF [Special Forces]”; and a discrete land
contribution of
a division
(minus) for operations in northern Iraq. They had been chosen
because they
effectively
represented “the maximum practical UK contribution to US-led
operations for
either
early or later action”.
323.
Mr Bowen
advised that the “indications from the US” were that it did “not
expect a
ground
force contribution from the UK for operations out of Kuwait”; and
that “providing
land forces
to integrate with the US main effort in the South” had “been
discounted
because of
the severe difficulties we would face due to interoperability;
deployment time
and
geographic constraints affecting logistics in
particular”.
324.
The “Line to
Take” offered to Mr Hoon included:
•
It was “too
early to judge” if the US military plan was a winning concept and
the
Chiefs of
Staff were “not yet convinced”. The question of whether the US
had
a winning
concept could be answered as planning developed. The UK view
was
that
pressure should be “applied from south, west and
north”.
•
The US
would like to establish the scale of UK involvement. Subject to the
legal
framework,
the US expected Diego Garcia, Cyprus, air enablers, maritime
force
and Special
Forces as a minimum. There was a “Developing expectation” of
a
“division
size force in the North with Turkey and other allies”.
•
Decisions
were “needed urgently” if UK forces were to be involved “this
winter”.
A large
land force contribution needed “preparatory action immediately”
and
would not
be complete until “March/April”.
325.
A small number
of additional details from this advice are set out in Section
6.1.
326.
Mr Watkins
also offered Mr Hoon a “Private Office distillation of where we
think
most of
your key advisers – Chiefs, PUS etc (with possible exception of
Simon Webb) –
132
Note
(handwritten) Watkins to SofS [MOD], 22 July 2002, attaching ‘Iraq:
Summary’.
56