The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
268.
Mr Scarlett
invited the Assessments Staff to prepare a CIG
Assessment.
269.
The
Assessment, issued on 15 March, is addressed later in this
Section.
270.
The UK
Government has been unable to find any record of Sir David
Manning’s
meeting on
7 March, at which the draft Cabinet Office ‘Iraq: Options Paper’
was also
271.
Cabinet was
told on 7 March that Iraq’s WMD programmes posed a
threat
to peace.
272.
Cabinet’s
discussion of the wider policy on Iraq is addressed in Section
3.2.
273.
In relation to
WMD, Mr Straw told Cabinet that “it was important to remind
his
colleagues
of the background” of Iraq’s failure to meet the obligations
imposed by the
Security
Council, and that Saddam Hussein’s:
“… regime
continued to pose a threat to peace through its development of
weapons
of mass
destruction (WMD) and the means to deliver them. UN weapons
inspectors
had been
forced to leave Iraq in 1998 because they were close to exposing
the full
extent of
Saddam’s programmes.”121
“No
decision had been taken on launching further military action … but,
it was
important
to ensure that the British public and international opinion
understood the
true nature
of the threat posed by the regime and the need to respond
effectively.”
275.
Cabinet
Ministers raised a number of points in the subsequent
discussion,
including
that “it was important to distinguish between the campaign against
international
terrorism
and efforts to address the threat … posed by the Iraqi regime’s
continuing
development
of WMD”.
276.
In his
conclusion, Mr Blair stated:
“… the
Iraqi regime was in clear breach of its obligations … Its WMD
programmes
posed a
threat to peace …”
277.
The Cabinet
Office co-ordinated background paper on Iraq,
commissioned
on 19
February, was sent to Mr Blair on 8 March.
120
Letter
Cabinet Office [junior official] to Iraq Inquiry, 22 July 2015,
[untitled].
121
Cabinet
Conclusions, 7 March 2002.
62