The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
326.
Asked if he
would “give an undertaking that he wouldn’t go to war without
their
agreement”,
Mr Blair replied:
“…
supposing in circumstances where there plainly was [a] breach … and
everyone
else wished
to take action, one of them put down a veto. In those
circumstances
it would
be unreasonable.
“Then I
think it [not to act] would be wrong because otherwise you couldn’t
uphold
the UN.
Because you would have passed your resolution and then you’d have
failed
to act on
it.”
327.
Asked whether
it was for the UK to judge what was “unreasonable”,
Mr Blair
envisaged
that would be in circumstances where the inspectors, not the UK,
had
reported to
the Council that they could not do their job.
328.
Asked if the
US and UK went ahead without a UN resolution would any
other
country
listen to the UN in the future, Mr Blair replied that there
was “only one set of
circumstances”
in which that would happen. Resolution 1441 “effectively” said that
if the
inspectors
said they could not do their job, a second resolution would issue:
“If someone
then …
vetoes wrongly, what do we do?”
329.
In his
evidence to the Inquiry Mr Blair explained the position he had
adopted
in his
meeting with President Bush and subsequent public statements. He
drew
the
Inquiry’s attention to the political implications of acknowledging
publicly the
legal
advice he had been given while there was still an unresolved debate
within
the UK
Government.
330.
Mr Blair
also emphasised that he had specifically said that action would
be
taken only
in circumstances where the inspectors had reported that they could
no
longer do
their job.
331.
Mr Blair
told the Inquiry that the main objective of the meeting on 31
January was
to convince
President Bush that it was necessary to get a second
resolution.122
That
“was
obviously going to make life a lot easier politically in every
respect”. Mr Blair added:
“we took
the view that that was not necessary, but, obviously, politically,
it would have
been far
easier”.
332.
Asked why he
had not told President Bush that he had been advised that a
further
determination
of the Security Council would be necessary to authorise the use of
force,
Mr Blair
wrote in his witness statement:
“In
speaking to President Bush on 31 January 2003 I was not going to go
into
this
continuing legal debate, internal to the UK Government. I repeated
my strong
commitment,
given publicly and privately to do what it took to disarm
Saddam.”123
122
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 95-96.
123
Statement,
14 January 2011, page 10.
62