9.2 | 23
May 2003 to June 2004
426.
On 5 October,
Sir Nigel Sheinwald sent Dr Rice a Note written by Mr Blair
for
427.
In his Note
Mr Blair suggested that he and the President had a common
political
problem;
losses in Iraq plus the failure to find “enough on WMD” were
leading the
public to
doubt the value of the invasion and the international community to
“a sense
of Schadenfreude”.
428.
Mr Blair
suggested that the solution was “a coherent strategy to get us back
on
the high
ground and get the public, at home and abroad, to focus on the big
picture”.
That
meant:
•
getting a
shared US/UK sense of what decisions on Iraq were vital and how
to
take them,
plus what the blockages were and how to remove them;
•
trying for
a new UN resolution, but “only at the right price”;
•
being
unapologetic about the need to deal with the continued security
threat
from WMD;
and
•
tackling
the wider agenda, including the MEPP, climate change and
reactivating
the World
Trade Organization.
429.
Mr Blair
wrote that the way ahead should include a regular, perhaps
weekly,
stocktake
on Iraq to “remove any blockages and give direction” and the need
to “get our
confidence
in our story back. Iraq is better without Saddam.”
430.
Mr Blair’s
Note ended:
“And by
this time next year, it better be going right, not wrong. For us
and for
the world!”
431.
A video
conference between Mr Blair and President Bush on 7 October,
also
attended by
Vice President Cheney and Dr Rice, suggested that the US
Administration
was
upbeat.252
US
Congressional visitors to Iraq from both American political parties
had
been struck
by the extent to which the issue of Iraq was perceived in the US
through the
“biased
filter” of the media.
432.
Mr Blair
told President Bush that he agreed with Ambassador Bremer that
there
should be
no early handover of executive power in Iraq, observing that Iraqis
themselves
preferred
stability under the Coalition umbrella to instability with an Iraqi
government.
433.
Mr Blair
made the case for the new Security Council resolution, but
concluded
that it
would not help much with extra troops or reconstruction. The US
still wanted a
further
resolution.
251
Letter
Sheinwald to Rice, 5 October 2003, [untitled] attaching Note [Blair
to Bush], [undated], ‘Note’.
252
Letter
Cannon to Adams, 7 October 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
video-conference with President Bush,
7
October’.
279