The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1.
This Section
addresses the development of UK strategy on Iraq between the
adoption
of
resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002 (see Section 3.5) and
Mr Blair’s meeting with
President
Bush, in Washington, on 31 January 2003.
2.
Other key
developments in the UK’s thinking between mid‑November and the
end
of January
which had an impact on the strategy and the planning and
preparation for
military
action are addressed elsewhere in the report:
•
The Joint
Intelligence Committee’s (JIC) Assessments of Iraq’s
declaration
of
7 December 2002, and its view that there was a continuing
policy of
concealment
and deception in relation to its chemical, biological, nuclear
and
ballistic
missile programmes, are addressed in Section 4.3.
•
How advice
was sought from Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General,
regarding
the
interpretation of UN Security Council resolution 1441 (2002) and
the manner
in which
that advice was provided is addressed in Section 5.
•
The
development of the options to deploy ground forces and the decision
on
17 January
to deploy a large scale land force for potential operations in
southern
Iraq rather
than for operations in northern Iraq, as well as maritime and
air
forces, are
addressed in Sections 6.1 and 6.2.
•
UK planning
and preparations for a post‑Saddam Hussein Iraq are addressed
in
Sections
6.4 and 6.5.
•
Following the
adoption of resolution 1441, the UK was pursuing a strategy
of
coercive
diplomacy to secure the disarmament of Iraq. The hope was that
this
might be
achieved by peaceful means, but views differed on how likely that
would
be.
•
The UK
Government remained convinced that Iraq had retained
prohibited
weapons and
was pursuing chemical, biological and ballistic missile
programmes
in
contravention of its obligations to disarm; and that the absence of
evidence of
weapons and
programmes was the result of a successful policy of
concealment.
•
By early
January 2003, Mr Blair had concluded that Iraq had had “no
change of
heart” and
military action to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime was likely to
be
required to
disarm Iraq.
•
The US
Administration was planning military action no later than early
March.
•
Mr Blair
and Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, concluded that a
second
UN (United
Nations) resolution would be essential to secure domestic
and
international
support for military action. In the absence of a “smoking gun”,
that
would
require more time and a series of reports from the UN inspectors
which
established
a pattern of Iraqi non‑compliance with its
obligations.
4