The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
“If it
takes another month or so, that is fine …”
•
“… I think
you could get a world where we see the UN in authority … proper
care
for the
people of Iraq, because at the moment the preparations to care for
the
humanitarian
aftermath of any military conflict are not properly in
place.”
•
“And
there’s another major legal point – if there isn’t a UN mandate for
the
reconstruction
of Iraq … It will in international law be an occupying army
and
won’t have
the authority to make changes in the administrative
arrangements
in Iraq.”
29.
Ms Short
informed Mr Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s Director of
Communications
and
Strategy, and Mr Suma Chakrabarti, the Department for
International Development
(DFID)
Permanent Secretary, of her action as soon as the interview had
been recorded.9
30.
Ms Short wrote
in her memoir that she:
“… had
decided war was unstoppable. I had experienced enough wars to know
that
it was too
late to criticise when our troops were on the ground
…”10
31.
Ms Short also
wrote that her diary entry for 9 March read:
“TB
[Mr Blair] rang, furious. Said I am undermining his delicate
negotiations …
“… I said
sorry to upset but doing what I think right, no good resigning
after war
started. He
said 7 days yet, can’t leave that man there.”
32.
Mr Robin
Cook, who in March 2003 was Leader of the House of Commons,
wrote
that on 10
March he had agreed with Ms Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, that,
on
13 March,
he would announce a debate on Iraq for the following
week.11
33.
No.10
officials emphasised to their counterparts in the White House
the
crucial
importance of securing nine votes in support of a resolution in
the
Security
Council.
34.
The UK
thought that more time, possibly until the end of March, could
be
needed to
build support.
35.
Sir David
Manning told Dr Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security
Advisor, that
he thought
they were “still short of nine votes” for the draft
resolution.12
Chile and
Mexico
“would
probably abstain” and China “might veto in French and Russian
company”. There
was “an
increasingly difficult domestic political background”, which
“re-emphasised how
crucial it
was to secure nine votes”. Time would be a factor in
that.
9
Letter
Chakrabarti to Turnbull, 11 March 2003, ‘Iraq’.
10
Short
C. An
Honourable Deception: New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of
Power. The Free
Press, 2004.
11 Cook
R. The Point
of Departure. Simon
& Schuster UK Ltd, 2003.
12
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 9 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Conversation with Condi
Rice’.
406