9.3 | July 2004 to May 2005

410. On 10 January Sir Nigel Sheinwald sent Mr Hadley a Note by Mr Blair and asked

him to show it to President Bush before their discussion the following day.217 Mr Blair’s

Note covered “our most pressing problems”.

411. On Iraq he judged:

“All the problems go back to security. Without it the politics are difficult, the

reconstruction shackled and the faith of Iraqis in the future undermined.”

412. Mr Blair considered that four actions were necessary:

• the Iraqiisation of security forces;

• spending money more quickly on reconstruction, especially of essential services;

• being “very tough indeed on the election”, including by ensuring it went ahead

on schedule and encouraging participation; and

• signalling a timetable for the withdrawal of US and UK forces “when and only

when, we can point to real indigenous Iraqi strength”.

413. In the video conference that followed on 11 January, Mr Blair reported that the UK

was “upbeat” about elections.218 Everything possible should be done on election security:

“But we also had to be very clear that where turnout was low, this was because

of intimidation and terrorist violence, and did not undermine the legitimacy of the

elections.”

414. On 11 January Lt Gen Fry, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments),

submitted advice to Mr Hoon on prospects for 2005.219 In his view a “strategic

watershed” was approaching in Iraq:

“The prognosis for the security LOO [Line Of Operation] in 05 is stark … The Sunni

insurgency will grow in scale and intensity … Kurdish and Shia violence, recently

quiescent, may be sparked by intractable constitutional discord over federalism …

The recent alignment of AQ and Al Zarqawi has formally established Iraq as the

central front for radical Islamic terrorism … the pace of ISF development is too slow

for Iraq to manage the insurgency alone before 06 … In sum, we are not on track

to deliver the Steady State Criteria (SSC) before the UN mandate expires, or even

shortly thereafter.”

415. Lt Gen Fry judged that “only additional military effort by the MNF-I as a whole”

might be able to get the campaign back on track. He identified three possible courses of

action for the UK – increasing the UK scale of effort, maintaining the status quo or, if it

was judged that the campaign was irretrievable, accepting failure and seeking to mitigate

217 Letter Sheinwald to Hadley, 10 January 2005, [untitled], attaching Note TB [Blair to Bush], 10 January

2005, ‘Note’.

218 Letter Quarrey to Owen, 11 January 2005, ‘Prime Minister’s VTC with President Bush, 11 January’.

219 Minute DCDS(C) to APS 2/SofS [MOD], 11 January 2005, ‘Iraq 2005 – a UK MOD perspective’.

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