The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
543.
Asked about
concerns that Washington was rushing unilaterally into
action,
Mr Blair
responded that people who wanted “to pull Europe and America apart”
were
“playing
the most dangerous game of international politics” he knew. That
was “so
dangerous
for the security of the world”. The US had listened to its allies
and agreed
to go
through the UN to give Saddam Hussein a final chance to disarm. But
having done
that, if
Saddam did not disarm, Mr Blair asked, “what prospect is there
of persuading
America in
the future to go down the multilateral route if having taken that
route we then
just shy
away from the consequences”?
544.
Asked why
public opinion was moving against action, Mr Blair replied
that in
relation to
Kosovo and Afghanistan, there had been “a very immediate casus
belli”.
It was
“more difficult to persuade people of the link between a state like
Iraq with
chemical,
or biological, or nuclear weapons and the link with international
terrorism”.
It was
his job to try to “persuade people of that, and also to persuade
people of the
moral case
for removing Saddam”.
545.
Mr Campbell
wrote in his diaries that “the plan was to consolidate” on the
success
at the
European Council, and “restate the basic case and get going re Iraq
exiles”.
In his meeting
of the Iraq communications group on 18 February there
was:
“… a clear
understanding that we were widening [the communications
strategy]
to take in
the bigger dimension of the moral and humanitarian side, and we
had
to be clear
about whether this was shifting to a regime change position. We
had
to be clear
that it didn’t, that the basic rationale hadn’t changed, but
equally we
were entitled
to make the case that the world would be better off without
him
[Saddam
Hussein] in power.”150
546.
Mr Campbell
also wrote:
“The US was
still giving out the message that it was going to happen and the
rest
was just
giving us cover, eg saying that a second resolution wasn’t
absolutely
necessary
but they would try to get it. Maybe they were just getting
irritated with
us for
having taken them down the UN route in the first
place.”
547.
On 17
February, Sir David Manning had sent his advice to Mr Blair,
of 16 February,
to
Mr Straw’s Private Office and to Sir Michael Jay, FCO
Permanent Under Secretary
(PUS),
Sir Jeremy Greenstock and Sir Richard
Dearlove.151
He wrote
that Mr Blair had
asked if
they “could look particularly at the tests” suggested for Iraqi
compliance.
150
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of
Power:
Countdown to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
151
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 17 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Way Forward’
attaching
Minute Manning
to Prime
Minister, 16 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Way Forward’.
278