The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
119.
Mr Blair
stated: “The basic strategy should be to answer these questions
and,
in doing
so, set … Iraq in a bigger context.” The steps to do that
included:
•
raising the
whole issue of WMD up the agenda with a separate strategy for
each
country
developing WMD, “in particular [those] acquiring nuclear
technology
in secret”;
and
•
setting out
the “unique danger posed by Iraq … an inherently violent
and
unstable
regime, with a track record of external aggression,
unmitigated
by any moderate
elements unlike other WMD countries”.
120.
On 2
September, Mr Campbell wrote to Sir David Manning,
Mr Powell and
Mr Rycroft,
saying that Mr Blair was “alarmed, and angry, at the way parts
of our thinking
and
planning on Iraq are seeping into the media in an uncoordinated and
undisciplined
way”.54
“Above
all”, Mr Blair was “concerned what the US Administration must
think”.
Mr Blair
intended to use his press conference the following day (in his
Sedgefield
constituency)
to make the general position clear and “give people a public
script”.
121.
The FCO
advice to Mr Blair before the press conference in
Sedgefield
on 3 September
2002 stated unequivocally that Iraq had and was hiding
WMD;
and that it
had continued its chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic
missile
programmes
after the departure of UN weapons inspectors in December
1998.
122.
The FCO
advice conflated past, present and potential future
capabilities
and
conveyed a sense of certainty about Iraq’s capabilities and
intentions
without
acknowledging that the judgements were inferential and that there
were
uncertainties
about Iraq’s current capabilities and caveats about the
absence
of intelligence
in the existing JIC Assessments.
123.
The FCO
asserted the belief that Iraq had recently accelerated its
weapons
programmes,
but it did not substantiate that assertion.
124.
In preparation
for his press conference in Sedgefield, Mr Blair asked for
information
on a number
of issues, including a summary of:
•
“what we
knew of the existing Iraqi WMD programme, in particular
ballistic
missile
technology (and its significance); and nuclear weapons
technology
(including
why the civil nuclear programme they are funding is almost
certainly
misused for
weapons programmes)”.55
54
Minute
Campbell to Manning, 2 September 2002, [untitled].
55
Minute
Blair to Manning, 1 September 2002, [untitled].
136