The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“If I had
started raising legal issues at that point with the President, I
think it would
have
started to make him concerned as to whether we were really going to
be there
or not and
what was really going to happen.
“Now I
would have had to have done that because in the end whatever I
thought
about the
legal position, the person whose thoughts mattered most and
definitively
were
Peter’s, but I wasn’t going to do that until I was sure about
it.”127
339.
Subsequently,
Mr Blair added that it had been “very, very difficult”. He
was
answering
questions in the House of Commons and giving interviews
and:
“… having
to hold the political line in circumstances where there was this
unresolved
… debate
within the UK Government …
“If I had …
in January and February said anything that indicated there was a
breach
in the
British position … it would have been a political catastrophe for
us.”128
340.
Mr Blair
told the Inquiry that these difficulties explained why he had
wanted to get
Lord
Goldsmith “together with the Americans and resolve this once and
for all”.129
341.
Mr Straw
had visited Washington on 23 January and had repeated
the
political
arguments for trying to get a second resolution.
342.
In a meeting
on 23 January, Mr Straw and Mr Colin Powell, US Secretary
of
State,
discussed the inspectors’ reports due to be presented to the
Security Council on
27 January,
the need to “shift the burden of proof to Iraq”, and the need to
ensure that
there were
no differences between the US and UK.130
343.
In his
subsequent meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr Straw
said that
“the key
question was how to navigate the shoals between where we were today
and
a possible
decision to take military action”.131
The UK
would be “fine” if there was a
second
resolution; and that it would be “ok if we tried and failed (a la
Kosovo). But we
would need
bullet-proof jackets if we did not even try”. In response to Vice
President
Cheney’s
question whether it would be better to try and fail than not to try
at all,
Mr Straw
said the former.
127
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 69-70.
128
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 70-71.
129
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, page 73.
130
Telegram 91
Washington to FCO London, 23 January 2003, ‘Iraq: Foreign
Secretary’s Lunch with
US Secretary
of State’.
131
Telegram 93
Washington to FCO London, 23 January 2003, ‘Foreign Secretary’s
Meeting with
Vice President
of the United States, 23 January’.
64