3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
616.
Dr Blix
told the Inquiry that he had been “pushed very hard” to conduct
interviews
abroad.207
Resolution
1441 had provided for such interviews but did not say they
were
mandatory.
He:
“… never
thought that you would get much out of it. It would only have been
trouble,
but we
would have been driven to it in the end. I think the push was so
hard, so we
would have
persuaded the Iraqis …”
617.
Dr Blix
added that he did not think interviews outside Iraq were realistic
but he
would have
pursued them if there had been more time: “The pressure from the
British
was also
strong. [Mr] Blair felt very strongly about it.”208
618.
In the entry
in his diaries for 15 March, Mr Campbell wrote that there was
a
meeting
with Mr Blair at 8.30am. He was “clear now what the French
would try – yes to
the tests,
even to the possibility of military action, but they would push for
a later date”.209
619.
That had been
followed by a pre-meeting with Mr Prescott, Mr Brown
and
Mr Douglas
Alexander, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.
Mr Campbell commented:
“GB [Gordon
Brown] was beginning to motor a bit, firing with good media
and
political
lines. He also felt we needed to explain more clearly why we had
been so
keen to get
the second resolution when now we were saying we didn’t need
one.
The answer
lay in the pressure we had been putting on the Iraqis, through
the
building of
international support. He also felt that we should be pressing
publicly
over some
of the questions he felt Blix had not fully answered.
“Goldsmith
was happy for us to brief that in the coming days he would make
clear
there was a
legal base for action. We now had to build up the Azores as a
genuine
diplomatic
effort, which was not going to be easy …
“John
Scarlett [Chairman of the JIC] joined us, reported signs of the
Iraqis really
hunkering
down, said there were reports of summary executions …
“Godric
[Smith – Mr Blair’s Official Spokesman] and I were briefing
Ministers and
then the
media re the forthcoming AG [Attorney General] advice. A few
decisions
having been
taken, the travel of direction clear, we felt in a stronger
position.”210
207
Public
hearing, 27 July 2010, page 57.
208
Public
hearing, 27 July 2010, page 58.
209
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
210
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
505