3.5 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September to November 2002
–
the
negotiation of resolution 1441
154.
Mr Campbell
commented:
“It was a
pretty good discussion, though focused as much as anything on the
idea
that we
were having to deal with a mad America and TB [Mr Blair]
keeping them
on the
straight and narrow. JP [John Prescott] referred to the idea that
TB would
have
sleepless nights, that we knew it could go to a difficult choice
between the
US and
the UN.”
155.
Mr Campbell
added that the discussion had been “serious and sober
and
hard‑headed
and TB was in control of all the arguments”: “Funnily enough, I
think
TB won
the Cabinet over more easily than the public.”
156.
In his memoir
published after the conflict, Mr Robin Cook, Leader of the
House
of Commons,
June 2001 to March 2003, wrote that only he and Ms Short had
“openly
questioned
the wisdom of military action”.47
Ms Short
had concluded that it was an unjust
war.
Mr Cook wrote that for him “the most difficult question was
‘Why now?’. What had
happened in
the past year to make Saddam Hussein more of an imminent danger
than
he has been
any year in the past decade?” Mr Hoon’s attempt to answer that
question
by
reference to the attack on 11 September 2001 had, in Mr Cook’s
view, “only served
to confirm
the difficulty of the question” as “no one has a shred of evidence
that Saddam
Hussein was
involved” in that attack.
157.
Mr Cook
wrote that he had closed his contribution:
“… by
stressing the vital importance of getting approval for anything we
do through
the UN.
‘What follows after Saddam will be the mother of all nation
building
projects.
We shouldn’t attempt it on our own – if we want the rest of the
international
community
with us at the end, we need them in at the start.’”
158.
Mr Cook
also wrote that in summing up the meeting, Mr Blair
had:
“… put
rather more stress on the US than the UN. ‘To carry on being
engaged with
the US is
vital. The voices on both the left and right who want to pull
Europe and
the US
apart would have a disastrous consequence if they
succeeded.’”
159.
Lord Turnbull,
Cabinet Secretary from September 2002 to September
2005,
described
Cabinet on 23 September as an “important meeting”; the
members:
“… weren’t
simply listening … They were actually applying their political
judgement
and – for
the most part supportively, in the direction that the Prime
Minister wanted.
“… the only
dissension was Robin Cook … Everyone else accepted …
that
containment
wasn’t working and he was the one person to say he thought it
was,
and I am
sorry he isn’t around to take the credit for that
…”48
47
Cook
R. The Point
of Departure. Simon
& Schuster UK Ltd, 2003.
48
Public
hearing, 13 January 2010, page 49.
225