The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
511.
Mr Straw
advised Mr Blair that he would need to make his position clear
to
President
Bush.
512.
On 10
September, Mr Straw and Secretary Powell, with officials, met
for supper in
513.
Secretary
Powell told Mr Straw that President Bush’s speech would not
refer to a
resolution
but he (Powell) would confirm to journalists that a resolution was
the aim. It
would have
four key elements:
•
A
“statement that Iraq was in ‘material breach’ of its
obligations”.
•
Iraq to
provide “all information required under [resolution] 687” within 15
days,
and “a
declaration of everything they were holding”. There had been a
debate
in the
Administration about how to respond if Iraq complied. Inspectors
“would
have to go
in to destroy what Iraq had declared: there [would] be no
further
scope for
military action. But most in the Administration did not think that
Iraq
would
respond satisfactorily.”
•
Secretary
Powell had acknowledged that intrusive inspections were
an
“alternative
at this stage” and that all necessary means could be in either a
first
or second
resolution.
•
“Either
way, the first resolution would deal with Iraq’s violation of
everything apart
from WMD …
[T]he President would linger on this kind of thing in his
speech.”
514.
Secretary
Powell said:
“It was
possible that the US would want to move from material breach to
all
necessary
means without interim steps, ie without inspectors … [T]there was
some
confusion
about how the Prime Minister had left things at Camp David, i.e.
some
argued that
the Prime Minister did not attach priority to
inspectors.”
515.
Using
Sir David Manning’s record of the discussions at Camp David,
Mr Straw put
Secretary
Powell “straight” on the UK position. He stressed that
Mr Blair’s “whole focus
was on
inspectors: regime change might be an incidental consequence of our
policy but
it was not
the aim”.
516.
Secretary
Powell said that he had heard that Dr Rice had
presented
Sir David Manning
with the “declaration of holdings option”; and he implied that
was
“with some
success”.
517.
Mr Straw
said that was the first he had heard of the option and asked
whether
it “was a
device to avoid inspectors”. The world knew that Saddam Hussein was
bad
but not
everybody was convinced by the threat he posed; the only way to
prove it was
to get
inspectors in. Mr Straw was “worried about the motives of
those suggesting the
156
Letter
McDonald to Manning, 10 September 2002, ‘Iraq’.
180