The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
large scale
deployment we need to plan on a framework division being ready
within
90
days.”
11.
The Defence
White Paper 1999 stated:
“The
assumptions made in the SDR were not intended to be an exact
template
for
everything we have been called on to do. They were intended rather
as a
guide to
the long term development of our forces without prejudicing the
size of an
actual
commitment in particular contingencies … But the SDR provided us
with a
demonstrably
sound and robust basis for planning and operations of all
kinds.”7
12.
General
Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of the General Staff from February
2003 to
August 2006,
told the Inquiry that the Planning Assumptions were:
“… not just
a bit of [an] intellectual experiment … they drive force
structures, they
drive
stocks, they drive equipment.”8
13.
After the
attacks on the US on 9/11, the UK was concerned that the US
might
take
immediate military action against Iraq.
14.
The discussion
in the UK about what to do about Iraq in the wake of the attack
on
the US on
9/11 and the “war against terrorism”, and the limitations on what
the UK knew
about US
thinking and military operations, is addressed in Section
3.1.
15.
The UK took
the view that the status quo on Iraq was no longer acceptable and
that
Iraq’s
defiance of the international community would need to be addressed.
But the UK
sought to
steer the US away from unilateral military action.
16.
Mr Blair
spoke to President Bush by telephone on 3 December
2001.9
The
conversation
was primarily about the position in Afghanistan.
17.
In a
discussion on future options in relation to Iraq, Mr Blair
told President Bush that
Sir David
Manning, Mr Blair’s Foreign Policy Adviser and Head of the
Overseas and
Defence
Secretariat (OD Sec), and Sir Richard Dearlove, Chief of the
Secret Intelligence
Service
(SIS), would be in Washington later that week. That would be an
opportunity to
share
thinking on “how the next phase might proceed”.
18.
The record of
the conversation was sent to Mr Hoon’s Private Secretary and
Admiral
Sir Michael
Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), amongst
others.
7
Ministry of
Defence, Defence
White Paper, 20
December 1999.
8
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, page 7.
9
Letter
Tatham to McDonald, 3 December 2001, ‘Telephone Conversation with
President Bush’.
178