The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
644.
Mr Campbell
also wrote:
•
He had also
discussed the problems for the UK caused by the US focus on
their
domestic
audience with the US.
•
Baroness
Morgan had warned Mr Blair that the PLP needed UN support,
and
they had to
see real evidence.
•
Mr Blair
had been “pretty clear that we couldn’t peel off from the US
without very
good
reason”.
645.
In a meeting
with Sir Jeremy Greenstock and No.10 officials to discuss
the
handling of
Iraq in the UN Security Council in the coming weeks, at 9.30am
on
23 January,
Mr Blair set out an approach which included:
•
There was a
need “if we could possibly get it” for “hard proof” that
Saddam
Hussein was
“lying over his WMD, to bring public opinion to accept the
need
for military
action”; and that inspections would need to be given
time.
•
In their
planned meeting (on 31 January), Mr Blair would seek to
convince
President
Bush to delay a decision to start military action for a few
weeks.
•
Confirmation
was needed that the assumption that the Arabs, and in
particular
the Saudis,
would only favour military action on the basis of a second
resolution,
was
correct.
•
The “extra
time should be used to maximise the chances of the
inspectors
finding a
smoking gun or of being seriously obstructed (the inspectors should
be
encouraged
to inspect sites which we knew the Iraqis would want to
block)”.
•
The “less
optimal outcome would be no smoking gun and no serious
obstruction
but a
series of regular Blix reports that he was not satisfied with the
level of Iraqi
co‑operation”.
•
The “extra
time would also give the Arabs the opportunity to press Saddam
to
go into
exile”.
•
The
argument needed to be made that “the inspectors were not supposed
to
be a
detective agency … South Africa was a model of how it could be
done.”219
646.
Mr Blair
told Cabinet that a “big debate was developing over the
value
of the
inspections route” and that he would “report back” after his
meeting with
President
Bush at the end of January.
647.
Mr Blair
told Cabinet on 23 January that his meeting with Dr Blix on 17
January
had
confirmed that Iraq was not co‑operating fully with the
UN.220
The
Security Council
meeting on
27 January would not be a “trigger date”; the “inspectors had to
continue
their
work”. The military build‑up was under way and Saddam Hussein was
“under
increasing
pressure”.
219
Minute
Rycroft to Manning, 23 January 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
Meeting with Jeremy Greenstock’.
220
Cabinet
Conclusions, 23 January 2003.
114