The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
was
certainly aware by 12 March that there was a “clear prospect” [of
military
action] and
he did not “think anybody was keen on military
action”;
•
was
“anxious that we should explore all possible alternatives”;
and
•
“owed”
Mr Blair the “best and most robust advice I could give
him”.
279.
Mr Straw
confirmed that the anonymous witness had given “a fair
summary”
of both
his and Mr Blair’s positions.
280.
Mr Straw
also stated:
“The
interesting thing … was that from an early stage it was the Chief
of the Defence
Staff who
had argued very strongly that if we were going to get involved in
the
military
action, the Army had to be there, because they would be unhappy
and
cross if
they weren’t. I don’t trivialise the way it was put across … So we
could have
provided
facilitation and then go[ne] in afterwards … which would not have
meant
standing
down the troops we had in theatre and it was essentially what the
Spanish
281.
Section 6.1
concludes that none of the key decision-takers regarded the
question
of whether
the Army would be unhappy if it did not participate in combat
operations as
a decisive
factor in the decision on 31 October 2002 to offer ground forces to
the US
for planning
purposes.
282.
Describing the
circumstances in which he had sent the minute of 11
March,
Mr Straw
wrote in his memoir, that, after his speech in the Security Council
on 7 March,
he had
been:
“…
convinced that unless there was a last-minute change of attitude by
Saddam, for
which I
hoped and prayed, war was inevitable. Whether the UK would be part
of the
invasion
was still unclear though … it was still far from certain that we
could win a
vote on war
in the Commons.”99
283.
Mr Campbell
recorded the concerns about the US approach which were
discussed
in the meeting.
284.
Describing the
discussion with Mr Straw in the edition of his diaries
published
in 2012,
Mr Campbell wrote that he and Mr Powell had concluded
that Mr Rumsfeld’s
comments
and the telephone call from Mr Murdoch on 11 March had
“effectively been
a pincer
movement”. The former had “forced” the UK “to come out strong” in
support
of the
US in the event of military action.100
98
Public
hearing, 2 February 2011, pages 105-106.
99
Straw
J. Last Man
Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor. Macmillan,
2012.
100
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
448