The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“This was
not an easy sell. The US context … was completely opposite to ours;
and
the UN did
not play well there. The meeting was a little tense … In the end,
one to
one,
I got his acceptance … because … ultimately he bought the idea
that this was
going to be
a whole lot easier if we had a coalition behind
us.”174
573.
In the context
of putting Iraq back into the UN system, Mr Blair told the
Inquiry, that
he had had
“to persuade [President Bush] to take a view radically different
from any of
the people
in his Administration”.175
574.
Sir David
Manning told the Inquiry that it would in his view have
been
impossible
for the UK to act in support of the US without “the UN route”,
but
US acquiescence
was reluctant.
575.
Asked what
thought had been given to the position if President Bush had
decided
not to take
the UN route, Sir David Manning told the Inquiry that his
assumption was that
it would
have been impossible for the UK to act for two
reasons:
“One was
that I thought the domestic political position was just impossible
… the
other … was
it seemed to me legally it would be very, very
difficult.”176
576.
Asked whether
the US had fully embraced the UN route, Sir David
replied:
“No, I
think the description … is we moved them from scepticism to
reluctant
acquiescence.
I don’t think there was a sudden conversion.”
577.
In his
memoir, Mr Straw expressed concern that the US
Administration
interpreted
Mr Blair’s position in his discussions with President Bush as
offering
the UK’s
unconditional support.
578.
Mr Straw
told the Inquiry that President Bush’s speech was the critical
point at
which the
US “committed itself to the strategy which we had been arguing
for”, and
“meant that
we were embarked on the strategy which, in my judgement could
easily
have led to
a peaceful resolution of this major dispute and that was
fundamental to the
approach of
the British Government”.177
579.
In his memoir,
Mr Straw wrote:
“… when
telling people things they didn’t want to hear, Tony frequently
used
ambiguous,
elliptical language. I continually worried that Bush heard Tony’s
nuanced
phraseology
as offering unconditional support. Time and again, on Iraq and
the
Middle East
especially, Colin told me that this was exactly what he was picking
up
174
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
175
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, page 50.
176
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, pages 70‑71.
177
Public
hearing, 21 January 2010, page 540.
192