The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
in
Mr Blair’s Note of 28 July that “in Britain, right now, I
couldn’t be sure of support from
Parliament,
Party, public or even some of the Cabinet”. In Mr Straw’s
view, if Cabinet
held a
secret ballot, it was unlikely that Mr Blair would
win.
114.
On the “day
after”, Mr Straw said that Iraq had been “the artificial
creation of the
UK in 1921.
The country had no experience of democracy and democracy could
pull
it apart.”
115.
Secretary
Powell had said he “took it” that Mr Blair:
“… wanted
some kind of UN resolution. Some of his colleagues did not want
UN
involvement
in any shape: it might frustrate their purpose. But he did not
think the
evil/moral
case worked: there were lots of evil people we did not go
after.
“At the
(video) meeting last week, he had made the argument that the US
was
isolated
and had slipped badly in the Arab world … and must make the case
in
the
international community, otherwise the US would be accused of the
biggest
act of
unilateralism … So the US should start making the case in the
President’s
12 September
speech [to the UN General Assembly]. The Vice President had
come
on board
but added the line that we could not allow the UN to stop us if we
did not
like the
way things were going. Importantly, the President had repeated that
the
objective
of regime change was getting rid of WMD. Others in the (virtual)
meeting
had not, he
thought, appreciated the importance of what the President was
saying;
but, for
Powell, the logic of the President’s position meant that, if WMD
were dealt
with,
regime change would no longer be required.”
116.
Secretary
Powell said that “the hawks had not made the terrorism case
against
Iraq” and
Iraq had not threatened the US; “Saddam was a ‘regional bastard’.
So the
US might
find itself taking action for the benefit of regional friends who
were not keen
on that
action.”
117.
Secretary
Powell was “still alone in the Administration, except for the
President”.
In response
to Mr Straw’s question about what the UK could do to help,
Secretary Powell
said that
“if his strategy was OK’d by the President, the US would need to
share” with the
UK “what
they had planned at UNGA [UN General Assembly]” and would need the
UK
“to back
them up in the Security Council”.
118.
Summarising
their discussion, Secretary Powell said that he and
Mr Straw:
“… were
agreed that we had to do something with our public and with
the
international
community. We had to think about the ‘ultimatum sentence’
and
recognise
that if Saddam accepted inspectors, military action would be on
hold.
A key
question then was whether we could live with a Saddam who had
fulfilled
the UN
mandate.”
114