3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
•
Sir Andrew
Turnbull asked whether a legal basis for military action was
required
for civil
servants, as well as for members of the Armed Forces.
•
Mr Hoon
asked whether the Attorney General’s legal advice was ever
disclosed.
•
Mr Blair
asked for a quick study into the precedents for that.
•
Adm Boyce
told the meeting that he was “confident that the battle
plan
would work”.
•
Mr Blair
stated that “we must concentrate on averting unintended
consequences
of military
action. On targeting, we must minimise the risks to
civilians.”
171.
In his
diaries, Mr Campbell wrote that:
•
Mr Hoon
had “said he would be happier with a clearer green light from the
AG
[Attorney
General]”.
•
Mr Blair
had been “really irritated” when Sir Andrew Turnbull had “said he
would
need
something to put round the Civil Service that what they were
engaged in
was legal”.
Mr Blair was “clear we would do nothing that wasn’t
legal”.
•
Lord
Goldsmith had provided “a version of the arguments he had put to
TB, on
the one
hand, on the other, reasonable case”.
•
Mr Hoon
had advised that the response to the “US request for the use of
Diego
Garcia and
[RAF] Fairford” should be that it was “not … automatic but had to
go
round the
system”. Mr Blair had said he “did not want to send a signal
that we
would not
do it”.
•
Mr Hoon
and Mr Straw were telling Mr Blair that the US could act
as early as
that
weekend, and “some of our forces would have to be in
before”.52
172.
Following the
meeting, Mr Peter Watkins, Mr Hoon’s Principal Private
Secretary,
provided an
outline of the military plan for Iraq and the need for decisions on
the
development
of the UK’s role to Sir David Manning.53
That is
addressed in Section 6.2.
173.
Ms Short
recorded that she had spoken to Mr Blair on the evening of 11
March
about the
fact that DFID had not been invited to attend the meeting “on the
legality of
military
action”, which she understood was about “the use of UK bases by the
US in war,
but the
fundamental question on whether there was legal authority for
military action
was
presumably the same”.54
Mr Blair
had said she would “see all” and that it had been
decided to
defer the decision on basing. He was: “Hopeful on a second
resolution.”
Lord Goldsmith
had “said 1441 enough. A bit later, 1441 enough if detail available
to
show SH
[Saddam Hussein] had not complied.”
52
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to Iraq.
Hutchinson,
2012.
53
Letter
Watkins to Manning, 11 March 2003, ‘Iraq: The Military
Plan’.
54
Short
C. An
Honourable Deception: New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of
Power. The Free
Press, 2004.
431