The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
758.
Sir David
Manning visited Washington on 29 January for talks with
Dr Rice.253
He was
accompanied by Sir Richard Dearlove.
759.
Sir David
Manning reiterated many of the points he had made in
previous
conversations
with Dr Rice.
760.
Sir David
reported that he had informed Dr Rice that, without a second
resolution,
Mr Blair
would not be able to secure Cabinet and Parliamentary support for
military
action; and
that he could be forced from office if he tried: “The US must not
promote
regime
change in Baghdad at the price of regime change in London.”
Mr Blair was not
asking for
much time: “weeks not months” and action beginning at the end of
March.
761.
Sir David
reported that the UK was significantly less optimistic than the US
about
the current
level of support for a second resolution authorising military
action and the
prospects
for increasing that support. The UK was anxious not to give the
impression
that
inspections were running out of time; that was needed for more
reports from Dr Blix
which would
carry much more weight internationally than the US and UK view.
Mr Blair
was in a
very different position from President Bush, who already had
Congressional
authority
to act.
762.
Sir Richard
Dearlove had “briefed in detail on our intelligence” which
the
US Administration
“clearly find very impressive”.
763.
Sir David
had “spelt out the political realities about Iraq extremely
bluntly”.
He thought
that the US had accepted a second resolution would be needed but
there
was no
agreement to wait until the end of March. Mr Blair would need
to “stick very
strongly to
the arguments in your Note” and to “spell them out in a way that
leaves no
scope for …
‘interpretation’”. A late March date would mean a pretty intensive
timetable.
He
suggested that one possibility would be to review the position
again after Dr Blix’s
next report
in mid‑February.
764.
The minute was
sent only to addressees inside No.10 with a private and
personal
copy sent
to Mr Straw.
765.
Reporting on
the mood in Washington for Mr Blair’s visit,
Sir Christopher Meyer
advised:
“It is
politically impossible for Bush to back down from going to war in
Iraq this
spring,
absent Saddam’s surrender or disappearance from the scene. If
Bush
had any
room for manoeuvre beforehand, this was closed off by his State of
the
Union
speech …
253
Minute
Manning to Prime Minister, 30 January 2003, ‘Talks with Condi Rice
in Washington
on 29 January’.
136