The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
386.
In the letter
of 14 March 2003 from Lord Goldsmith's office to No.10, which
is
addressed
in Section 5 of the Report, Mr Blair was told that an
essential ingredient of the
legal basis
was that he, himself, should be satisfied of the fact that Iraq was
in breach of
resolution
1441.
387.
In accordance
with that advice, it was Mr Blair who decided that, so far as
the UK
was
concerned, Iraq was and remained in breach of resolution
1441.
388.
Apart from
No.10’s response to the letter of 14 March, sent the following
day,
in terms
that can only be described as perfunctory, no formal record was
made of that
decision
and the precise grounds on which it was made remain
unclear.
389.
The Inquiry
was told, and it accepts, that it would have been possible at that
stage
for the UK
Government to have decided not to go ahead with military action if
it had
been
necessary to make a decision to do so; or if the House of Commons
on 18 March
had voted
against the Government.
390.
Although there
had been unanimous support for a rigorous inspections
and
monitoring
regime backed by the threat of military force as the means to
disarm Iraq
when
resolution 1441 was adopted, there was no such consensus in the
Security
Council in
March 2003. If the matter had been left to the Security Council to
decide,
military
action might have been postponed and, possibly,
avoided.
391.
The Charter of
the United Nations vests responsibility for the maintenance
of
peace and
security in the Security Council. The UK Government was claiming to
act on
behalf of
the international community “to uphold the authority of the
Security Council”,
knowing
that it did not have a majority in the Security Council in support
of its actions. In
those
circumstances, the UK’s actions undermined the authority of the
Security Council.
392.
A
determination by the Security Council on whether Iraq was in fact
in material
breach of
resolution 1441 would have furthered the UK’s aspiration to uphold
the
authority
of the Council.
393.
The way in
which the policy on Iraq was developed and decisions were taken
and
implemented
within the UK Government has been at the heart of the Inquiry’s
work and
fundamental
to its conclusions.
394.
The Inquiry
has set out in Section 2 of the Report the roles and
responsibilities
of key
individuals and bodies in order to assist the reader. It is also
publishing with the
Report many
of the documents which illuminate who took the key decisions and on
what
basis,
including the full record of the discussion on Iraq in Cabinet on
five key occasions
pre-conflict,
and policy advice to Ministers which is not normally
disclosed.
622