The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
examples of
Iraq’s persecution of its own people and actions against
other
Muslims in
the region, including in Kuwait in 1990-1991; and
•
provisions
of relevant UN resolutions.431
794.
In the “Key
messages” of a briefing produced for the Labour Party on
20 September,
Iraq’s
statement (in a letter from Saddam Hussein read to the UN General
Assembly
on 19
September – see Section 3.5) that it “did not have nuclear,
chemical or biological
weapons”432
was
described as “extraordinary”.433
The
briefing also stated:
“Saddam has
accelerated his efforts to develop a biological, chemical and
nuclear
weapons
capability since the expulsion of weapons inspectors in 1998, and
the
means to
deliver them. He is a uniquely dangerous dictator: the only one to
have
used WMD
against his own people and neighbours.”
795.
Commenting on
the preparation of a core script for use when the dossier
was
published,
Mr Tom Kelly wrote that the “weakness, obviously, is our
inability to say
that he
could pull the nuclear trigger anytime soon”.434
He thought
the basic message,
that “by
then it would be too late”, dealt with that point.
796.
Mr Kelly
subsequently wrote:
“We should
use the full authority of the House to underline the basic message
this
is a risk
we cannot take. If we put someone on earlier [to make comments
before
Mr Blair’s
statement to the House of Commons] there is a danger that the big
picture
will get
lost in the detail of precisely how long it [would] take for
nuclear capacity etc
Instead TB
can carry the big message this is a man who will do anything he can
not
just to
hang on to power, but to impose his will.”435
797.
On 23
September, a draft of Mr Blair’s statement was sent to the
Private Offices
of
Mr Straw, Mr Hoon, Mr Brown, Lord Goldsmith and Sir
Andrew Turnbull, and to
Mr Scarlett
and Mr Bowen.436
They were
asked to identify “any facts that are false and …
any other
essential changes that you would like to suggest”.
798.
In his
diaries, Mr Campbell wrote that Mr Blair had “done the
statement pretty
431
Briefing
CIC, 20 September 2002, ‘Facts about Iraq – Saddam’s Games with
Inspectors’, attached to
Minute
Rycroft to Prime Minister, ‘Iraq: Tuesday’s Debate’.
432
UN General
Assembly, ‘Fifty-seventh session 19 September 2002’
(A/57/PV.17).
433
Briefing
Labour Party, 20 September 2002, ‘Iraq’.
434
Email Kelly
to Campbell, 19 September 2002, ‘Tuesday core script’.
435
Email Kelly
to Campbell, 19 September 2002, ‘RE Tuesday core
script’.
436
Letter
Rycroft to Sedwill, 23 September 2002, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
Statement, 24 September’,
attaching
draft statement.
437
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
268