5 |
Advice on the legal basis for military action, November 2002 to
March 2003
333.
Mr Blair
subsequently told the Inquiry that, in the context of trying to
sustain an
international
coalition:
“My desire
was to keep the maximum pressure on Saddam because I hoped
we
could get a
second resolution with an ultimatum because that meant we could
avoid
the
conflict altogether, or then have a clear consensus for removing
Saddam.
So I was
having to carry on whilst this internal legal debate was continuing
and try
to hope
we could overcome it.”124
334.
Asked if he
had felt constrained in making a commitment to President Bush by
the
advice Lord
Goldsmith was continuing to give him, Mr Blair told the
Inquiry:
“No. I was
going to take the view, and I did right throughout that period,
there might
come a
point at which I had to say to the President of the United States,
to all the
other
allies, ‘I can’t be with you.’ I might have said that on legal
grounds if Peter’s
advice had
not, having seen what the Americans told him about the
negotiating
process,
come down on the other side. I might have had to do that
politically. I was
in a very,
very difficult situation politically. It was by no means certain
that we would
get this
thing through the House of Commons.
“… I was
going to continue giving absolute and firm commitment until the
point at
which
definitively I couldn’t …”125
335.
Mr Blair
added he had taken that position:
“… because
had I raised any doubt at that time, if I had suddenly said ‘Well,
I can’t
be sure we
have got the right legal basis’. If I started to say that to
President Bush,
if I had
said that publicly, when I was being pressed the whole time ‘Do you
need
a second
resolution, is it essential …?’ … but I wasn’t going to be in a
position
where I
stepped back until I knew I had to, because I believed that if I
started to
articulate
this, in a sense saying ‘Look, I can’t be sure’, the effect of that
both on
the
Americans, on the coalition and most importantly on Saddam, would
have been
dramatic.”
336.
Mr Blair
acknowledged that holding that line was uncomfortable, “especially
in the
light of
what Peter [Goldsmith] had said”.
337.
Mr Blair
told the Inquiry that President Bush:
“… knew
perfectly well that we needed a second resolution. We had been
saying
that to him
throughout … [W]e had not had the final advice yet …
“… I was
not going to … start putting the problem before the President …
until I was
in a
position where I knew definitely that I had to.”126
124
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, page 65.
125
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 67-68.
126
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 68-69.
63