The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“Nobody in
the Cabinet was unaware of … what the whole issue was about. It
was
the thing
running throughout the whole of the political mainstream at the
time. There
were
members of the Cabinet who would challenge and disagree, but most
of them
419.
The Inquiry
has seen the minutes of 26 meetings of Cabinet between
28 February
2002 and
17 March 2003 at which Iraq was mentioned and Cabinet
Secretariat
notebooks.
Cabinet was certainly given updates on diplomatic developments and
had
opportunities
to discuss the general issues. The number of occasions on which
there
was a
substantive discussion of the policy was very much more
limited.
420.
There were
substantive discussions of the policy on Iraq, although (as the
Report
sets out)
not necessarily of all the issues, in Cabinet on 7 March and
23 September
2002 and
16 January, 13 March and 17 March 2003. Those are
the records which are
being
published with the Report.
421.
At the Cabinet
meeting on 7 March 2002, Mr Blair concluded:
“… the
concerns expressed in discussion were justified. It was important
that the
United
States did not appear to be acting unilaterally. It was critically
important
to
reinvigorate the Middle East Peace Process. Any military action
taken against
President
Saddam Hussein’s regime had to be effective. On the other hand,
the
Iraqi
regime was in clear breach of its obligations under several United
Nations
Security
Council resolutions. Its WMD programmes posed a threat to peace.
Iraq’s
neighbours
regarded President Saddam Hussein as a danger. The right
strategy
was to
engage closely with the Government of the United States in order to
be in
a position
to shape policy and its presentation. The international community
should
proceed in
a measured but determined way to decide how to respond to the
real
threat
represented by the Iraqi regime. No decisions to launch military
action had
been taken
and any action taken would be in accordance with international
law.
“The
Cabinet, ‘Took note, with approval.’”194
422.
Cabinet on
17 March 2003 noted Mr Blair’s conclusion that “the
diplomatic process
was at an
end; Saddam Hussein would be given an ultimatum to leave Iraq;
and the
House of
Commons would be asked to endorse the use of military action
against Iraq to
enforce
compliance, if necessary”.
423.
In Section 5
of the Report, the Inquiry concludes that Lord Goldsmith should
have
been asked
to provide written advice which fully reflected the position on
17 March and
explained
the legal basis on which the UK could take military action and set
out the risks
of legal
challenge.
193
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 228-229.
194
Cabinet
Conclusions, 7 March 2002.
628