The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
abide by
the UN resolutions … as more negotiations go on and he fails to
comply
and you
know that he is developing these weapons of mass destruction, then
over
a period of
time you are entitled to draw the conclusion that this threat is
growing
not
diminishing … there is a threat … The options are open but we do
have to deal
529.
Mr Blair
also told Mr Anderson that there would be documentation
setting out the
nature of
the WMD threat and that:
“The only
reason we have not published some of this documentation before is
that
you have
got to choose your time … otherwise you send something rocketing up
the
agenda when
it is not necessarily there. Certainly if we do move into a new
phase,
yes, of
course, we will publish.”230
530.
Sir David
Manning discussed Mr McKane’s minute of 21 June with him
and
Mr Powell
and Mr Campbell on 16 July.231
They
agreed:
“… now was
not the time to publish any of the three Iraq public documents or
the
wider WMD
programmes of concern paper. We should, however, be ready to
move
quickly in
the light of changing circumstances.”
531.
It was also
agreed that the draft would not be shown to the US until closer to
the
date of
publication and that:
“We should
keep an open mind on whether to publish the Iraq WMD
paper
separately
from the other two Iraqi papers. We should aim for a Foreword
signed by
either the
Foreign and Defence Secretaries, or possibly the Prime
Minister.”
532.
Mr McKane
told the Inquiry that he had “had an exchange with Sir David
Manning
in which we
agreed that we should keep it ready … to dust it off and use it at
short
notice, if
necessary”.232
533.
In his diaries
Mr Campbell wrote that Mr Blair had:
“… raised
the temperature another gear by making clear publicly we intended
to do
something
and also saying that Saddam had to be dealt with. We agreed not to
go
for it yet,
because it would look like we were going to war if we did, TB
having made
it pretty
clear that it would be the start of another phase.”233
229
Minutes,
Liaison Committee (House of Commons), 16 July 2002, [Evidence
Session], Qs 99-100.
230
Minutes,
Liaison Committee (House of Commons), 16 July 2002, [Evidence
Session], Qs 87-88.
231
Minute
Manning to McKane, 16 July 2002, ‘Iraq: Public
Documents’.
232
Public
hearing, 19 January 2011, page 77.
233
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
108