The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
160.
Asked if
Mr Cook thought containment was working and could be defended
and
sustained,
Lord Turnbull replied:
“Yes, but
what the Prime Minister was saying was it wasn’t working, it
couldn’t be
sustained
and we couldn’t take the risk that he [Saddam Hussein] would use
this
period to
come back at someone.”
…
“… there is
a slight implication in the way you put that they were just getting
a
nice
interesting briefing. What was interesting about these occasions
was – and
it happens
quite rarely – virtually everybody spoke.”49
161.
Lord Turnbull
also stated that Mr Cook had said: “You are overestimating the
extent
to which
containment has been eroded.”50
162.
Lord Boateng,
Chief Secretary to the Treasury in September 2002, told the
Inquiry
that
Cabinet in September 2002 was a “critical discussion”. His sense
was that the UK
was not, at
that point, set on a particular course; it was:
“… engaged
in a process, where there was strenuous diplomatic activity in
order
to bring
Saddam Hussein to the table, that we were engaged in a process
where
diplomacy
was obviously the preferred route and considerable activity in the
UN
and in
capitals around that …”51
163.
Asked whether
there had been a debate about different scenarios and
different
possible
courses, Lord Boateng replied:
“… there
was certainly a discussion around different scenarios that came up
in the
way in
which we addressed these issues in Cabinet …
“… in the
September meeting, where, as you know, we were about to publish
the
dossier,
there was about to be a report to Parliament and there was a
discussion
around that
and it was a full discussion and, in the course of that, colleagues
made
various
contributions and various scenarios surfaced. Did we come together
at that
meeting in
September and say ‘These are the options, what are we going to go
for?’
It wasn’t
that sort of discussion …
“What we
did have was a full discussion around the issues as they were
reported to
us by those
… who were obviously most closely involved, and you never got a
sense
that debate
and discussion were being curtailed, but you also got a sense –
and
indeed it
was the case – that there were those who were most intimately
involved on
a
day‑to‑day basis because it fell within their areas of
responsibility and competence
49
Public
hearing, 13 January 2010, page 50.
50
Public
hearing, 13 January 2010, page 58.
51
Public
hearing, 14 July 2010, page 3.
226