The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
“As soon as
we are clear on the second resolution (whether it fails to
get
the
necessary votes or is not put to a vote), Cabinet should meet
again
for a
discussion on the politics and to put a proposition to Parliament
for
434.
Mr Campbell
wrote in his diaries that:
•
Lord
Williams of Mostyn, the Leader of the House of Lords and Attorney
General
from 1999
to 2001, had “said there would be a debate [in Cabinet] on
the
legality”,
and Ms Short had said Lord Goldsmith should be present.
Mr Blair had
“said of
course he would”.
•
Mr Blair
“said that the French had exposed fully how intransigent they
were.
Chirac’s
‘whatever the circumstances’ was a mistake, and the wrong
approach,
and people
were angry about it. They had also now rejected the basis of
the
tests we
were proposing without any discussion or consideration. He
felt
Chirac’s
desire for a ‘bipolar world’ was leading him to turn away from
discussion
of any kind
on this. He promised another discussion before a
vote.”
•
Mr Brown
“came in very strongly later on, on the French in
particular”.
•
Mr Cook
“said we should not ‘burn our bridges’ with the French, made
clear
that there
must be a legal base for action, there was no political case
without
a second
resolution and we must keep working for it”.
•
Ms Short
“said we needed the Road Map published, lambasted the
‘megaphone
diplomacy’
but as ever gave the impression that it was just us and the
Americans
who engaged
in it. She said the world community was split because
the
Americans
were rushing. We should not be attacking the French but coming
up
with a
different kind of process. ‘If we can get the Road Map, we can get
the
world
reunited behind it.’”130
435.
Mr Campbell
commented that Mr Cook had spoken “very deliberately” and
his
intervention
was “a very clear marker” that he would resign “if there was action
without a
second
resolution. He felt we did not have the moral, diplomatic or
humanitarian cover.”
436.
Ms Short told
the Inquiry that the “strategy was: blame the French and claim
that
they’d said
they would veto anything. And they said it at the Cabinet
…”131
437.
Sir Stephen
Wall, Mr Blair’s Adviser on European Issues and Head of the
Cabinet
Office
European Secretariat 2000 to 2004, told the Inquiry that at Cabinet
on 13 March:
“As Tony
Blair came into the room John Prescott stood up and saluted. It was
a
sort of
funny moment but in I think in a rather characteristic way John
Prescott was
doing
something quite clever. He was saying ‘You are the Commander in
Chief and
129
Minute
Chakrabarti to Secretary of State [DFID], 12 March 2003, ‘Cabinet
13 March 2003: Iraq’.
130
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
131
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, page 103.
476