6.1 |
Development of the military options for an invasion of
Iraq
were
engaged in preliminary planning, but it was hard to read where they
were going
with it. We
needed to get alongside that planning and be part of it
…”71
137.
The most
detailed account of the meeting is in the diaries of
Mr Alastair Campbell,
Mr Blair’s
Director of Communications and Strategy. He described the meeting
as:
“… a repeat
of the smaller meeting we’d had on Afghanistan. Boyce … mainly
set
out why it
was hard to do anything …
“TB [Tony
Blair] wanted to be in a position to give GWB [President Bush] a
strategy
and
influence it. He believed Bush was in the same position as him,
that it would
be great to
get rid of Saddam and could it be done without terrible
unforeseen
circumstances?
…
“We were
given an account of the state of Iraqi forces, OK if not brilliant,
the
opposition
– hopeless – and Saddam’s ways – truly dreadful.
CDS
appeared to be
trying to
shape the meeting towards inaction, constantly pointing out the
problems,
the
nature of the [US]
Administration, only Rumsfeld and a few others knew
what
was being
planned, TB may speak to Bush or Condi [Rice] but did they really
know
what was
going on? … He said apart from Rumsfeld, there were only four or
five
people who
were really on the inside track.
“… but CDS
would keep coming back to the problems … General Tony Pigott
did
an OK
presentation which went through the problems realistically but
concluded
that a
full‑scale invasion would be possible, ending up with fighting in
Baghdad. But
it would be
bloody, could take a long time. Also, it was not impossible that
Saddam
would keep
all his forces back. He said post‑conflict had to be part of
conflict
preparation.
The Americans believed we could replicate Afghanistan but it was
very,
very
different … Cedric [Delves] … said Tommy Franks was difficult to
read because
he believed
they were planning something for later in the year, maybe New Year.
He
basically
believed in air power plus Special Forces. CDS said if they want us
to be
involved in
providing force, we have to be involved in all the planning, which
seemed
fair
enough.
“TB said it
was the usual conundrum – do I support totally in public and help
deliver
our
strategy, or do I put distance between us and lose
influence?
“We
discussed whether the central aim was WMD or regime change.
Pigott’s view
was that it
was WMD. TB felt it was regime change in part because of WMD
but
more
broadly because of the threat to the region and the world …
[P]eople will say
that we
have known about WMD for a long time … [T]his would not be a
popular
war, and in
the States fighting an unpopular war and losing is not an
option.
71
Blair
T. A
Journey.
Hutchinson, 2010.
197