3.7 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003
983.
Asked by
Mr Andrew Selous (Conservative) about the direct threat and
risks to the
UK,
Mr Blair replied:
“… I think
that the threat of leaving Saddam Hussein armed with weapons of
mass
destruction
is two fold. First, it is that he begins another conflict in his
region, into
which
Britain … would inevitably be sucked … Alternatively – and I think
this is a
powerful
and developing threat that the world must face – the risk is that
states
such as
Iraq, which are proliferating these chemical and biological weapons
of mass
destruction,
will combine in a way that is devastating for the world with
terrorists who
are
desperate to get their hands on those weapons to wreak maximum
destruction.
“… If we do
not stand firm over Iraq now, we will never be able to deal with
the next
threat that
encompasses us.”304
984.
In the entry
in his diary for 5 March, Mr Cook wrote that PMQs “was notable
for the
confidence”
Mr Blair had “expressed about getting a second
resolution”.305
He
added:
“I don’t
know whether this is calculated bravado to keep Saddam wary, or
whether
he is in a
state of denial about the mounting evidence that they can’t get a
second
resolution
on the present terms.”
985.
Mr Cook
told Mr Blair that he would be unable to carry public opinion
if
he
sidelined the inspectors; if Dr Blix needed months, he should
be given until
the autumn.
986.
In a meeting
in the House of Commons shortly after PMQs, Mr Cook told
Mr Blair
that he had
“gone out on a limb” and he should “stop climbing
further”.306
The UK
had
“to be
seen on the side” of Dr Blix. Mr Blair would “never carry
British opinion” if the UK
was “seen
to be sidelining the work of the inspectors”.
987.
Mr Cook
also wrote that when Mr Blair had told him that Britain might
propose a
new
deadline on 7 March, he had said it had to be “seen logically to
arise from what Blix
said. If he
needed months, we should be prepared to give him until the autumn.”
Mr Blair
had replied
that he could not deliver that, adding:
“Left to
himself, Bush would have gone to war in January. No,
not January,
September.”
988.
Mr Cook
subsequently wrote that the conversation “was an honest
exchange
between two
colleagues who were both open about the gulf widening between
them”:
and that
Mr Blair had “always [been] candid about his intention to be
with Bush when
the war
began”. Mr Cook had been “deeply troubled” by “two distinct
elements” of that
conversation.
First, that “the timetable for war was plainly not driven by the
progress
304
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 5 March
2003, column 818.
305
Cook
R. The Point
of Departure. Simon
& Schuster UK Ltd, 2003.
306
Cook
R. The Point
of Departure. Simon
& Schuster UK Ltd, 2003.
357