The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
744.
Copies of the
record of the meeting were sent to Adm Boyce, the Private
Offices
of Mr Hoon,
Mr Straw and Mr Brown, and to Mr Bowen.
745.
The reasons
for the decision to offer ground forces are considered in Section
6.1.
746.
Sir David
Manning raised the possibility with Dr Rice of delaying
action
until
winter 2003 in view of the potential mismatch between the timetable
for
inspections
and the US military plan, but there was no substantive
discussion
of that
option.
747.
Sir David
Manning flew to Washington on 31 October for talks with
Dr Rice,
Secretary
Powell and Mr Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of
State.
748.
The record of
the discussions sent to Whitehall stated that Sir David
had
“underlined
the importance for the UK of a UNSCR” and had discussed the
prospects
for
reaching agreement. The US was working on a revised text. Sir David
had “a strong
impression
that the gap between [the US and France] had widened
again”.253
749.
A separate
private minute from Sir David to Mr Blair reported concern
about
whether the
potential difficulties in reaching agreement with the French had
been
underestimated,
and an assurance that President Bush understood the UK’s
political
750.
The other
major issue discussed was whether a UK military force would
be
permitted
to transit through Turkey.
751.
Sir David
Manning reported that he and Dr Rice had discussed the fact
that “the
UN
inspection timetable was now out of sync with the timetable for
possible military
action
beginning in early January”. He had asked “whether we might now be
looking at
the second
of the original ‘windows’ ie a campaign next winter rather than
this”. That had
not been
ruled out but the conversation had shifted to the prospects for
internal regime
change
sparing the need for military action. The best chance of securing
that was “a
very tough
UN resolution accompanied by threatening military preparations, in
the hope
that
Saddam’s system would implode under the strain”.
752.
Sir David
reported that Dr Rice had been focused on events developing in
a way
which meant
military action might not be necessary. He speculated whether that
might
indicate a
shift in the US attitude. They had also discussed the possibility
of issuing
an
ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq if he was in
breach of
the resolution.
753.
In conclusion,
Sir David reported that there had been a “pretty sharp change
of
mood over
the past three months, perhaps fuelled by polls which show growing
doubts
among the
US public, and a growing appreciation of the huge difficulties we
shall face
253
Letter
Rycroft to McDonald, 1 November 2002, ‘Iraq: US Views, 1
November’.
254
Minute
Manning to Prime Minister, 3 November 2002, ‘Visit to Washington:
Talks with Condi Rice’.
330