3.3 |
Development of UK strategy and options,
April to July 2002
sentence
should come out and Jonathan agreed, but the Prime Minister
decided to
leave
it.
“I have
always assumed, incidentally, because he saw it as
a rhetorical flourish,
not because
at that stage he was thinking anything in terms of what the scale
of
commitments
might be. But it was a sort of emotional statement,
I think. But it
seemed to
me that it went further than we should have gone.”168
444.
Asked if he
thought it “was heard” in the sense Mr Blair intended, Sir David
replied:
“… I just
don’t know. I thought there was a risk it would be taken at face
value.
I can’t tell
you whether it actually was …”
445.
Asked how
often his advice was declined on a matter like this, Sir David
replied
that there
were:
“… not many
such moments … he [Mr Blair] was willing to listen to advice, but
he
was
absolutely happy to pursue his own course … he was elected and it
was [for]
him to
decide.
“But the
Prime Minister had strong views about things. He was absolutely
open to
debate, but
on a lot of things, if he’d made up his mind, he’d made up his
mind.”169
446.
In his
evidence to the Inquiry, Mr Blair offered further insights into
his
thinking.
447.
In his memoir,
Mr Blair wrote:
“So it’s
impossible not to read the accounts of the meetings during that
time without
an
assumption of a decision already taken.
“But here
is the difference between everyone else and the final decision
taker.
Everyone
can debate and assume; only one person decides. I knew at that
moment
that George
had not decided. He had … a conceptual framework in which the
pivotal
concept was
that Saddam had to come fully into compliance and disarm but he
had
taken no
final decision on the way to make him.
“In late
July, I sent George another personal, private note
…”170
448.
Mr Blair
described the Note to President Bush as “setting the case for going
the UN
route; and
stressing again the Middle East Peace Process”. Following the Note
he had:
“…
reflected with the closest team on the different strands of the
challenge. If it
came to
war, how did we do it with [the] least bloodshed? That was the
military
question.
On the basis that we did it, how did we maximise the coalition?
That was
168
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, page 50.
169
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, page 51.
170
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
77