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Scarlett summary

The meeting began with a report by John Scarlett. To quote from the minutes:

“John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.”

Nobody reading these remarks could possibly conclude that Scarlett was concerned with the disarmament of Iraq by non-military means, as prescribed in Security Council resolutions. Plainly, he was concerned with regime change by military means. He doesn’t mention disarmament (and nor does anybody else, according to the minutes, though UN inspectors do get a mention as a means of creating a casus belli, of which more later).

Iraq no threat

The minutes also make it clear that the Prime Minister was committed to regime change, not because Iraq was known to possess a lethal, and growing, array of “weapons of mass destruction”, and was a threat to his neighbours and the wider world. Quite the reverse: as the Ricketts memo made clear, it was generally believed that Iraq had only limited quantities of chemical and biological weapons, and was little threat to anybody.

Jack Straw was minuted as saying:

“It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. [my emphasis]”

A smidgeon of difference

This matter is peripheral to the main argument here, but there appears to be a smidgeon of difference between the Foreign Secretary’s privately expressed assessment of the threat from Iraq to its neighbours and the Prime Minister’s publicly expressed assessments. For example, a few months earlier, on 10 April 2002, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons:

"… there is no doubt at all that the development of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein poses a severe threat not just to the region, but to the wider world.

and, later that day, he said that Saddam Hussein:

“… is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."

On 3 September 2002, at a press conference in his Sedgefield constituency, he said:

"Iraq poses a real and a unique threat to the security of the region and the rest of the world.”

And in his Foreword to the September dossier, published on 24 September 2002, he described Iraq armed with “weapons of mass destruction” as “a current and serious threat to the UK national interest”. He continued:

“I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped."

Theoretically, the Foreign Secretary’s private assessment can be reconciled with the Prime Minister’s public assessments but, to do so, one must believe that Saddam Hussein took a summer holiday from threatening his neighbours in 2002 before resuming again in the autumn.

Wrongfooting Saddam

The minutes of the meeting of 23 July 2002 also confirm that the key element in the Prime Minister’s plan to gain support at home and abroad for military action was to “wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors”, to use Christopher Meyer’s phase in his memo to Sir David Manning.

In July 2002, there were no UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. They were withdrawn in December 1998 for their own safety at the request of Clinton and Blair, because the US/UK were about to embark on a bombing campaign against Iraq. After the bombing, Iraq understandably refused to allow them back in.

In July 2002, the plan was that Iraq be given an ultimatum, by means of a Security Council resolution, to re-admit UN inspectors or face military action.

Jack Straw proposed to the meeting:

“We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.”

The Prime Minister concurred:

“… it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. … If the political context were right, people would support regime change.”

The disarmament of Iraq by peaceful means required UN inspectors being on the ground in Iraq. Yet, here the Prime Minister is expressing the hope that Saddam Hussein will refuse to allow in UN inspectors. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that, contrary to his countless public assertions, he wasn’t interested in the disarmament of Iraq by peaceful means. Had this been his objective, he would have been hoping against hope that Iraq would admit UN inspectors so that it could proceed.

Of course, Saddam Hussein’s refusal to admit inspectors “would make a big difference politically and legally” if one wanted to justify, and gain support for, military action against Iraq, leading to regime change. In this “political context”, “people would support regime change”. If Iraq refused to admit inspectors, it was likely that the Security Council could have been persuaded to authorise military action in a clear-cut manner. Then, there would have been no argument about the “legality” of military action against Iraq – it would have been authorised by the Security Council, ostensibly to enforce Security Council resolutions, but in reality Saddam Hussein would have been removed from power.

US sceptical

However, there was a problem with this approach in July 2002: the US administration was highly sceptical about taking the issue to the Security Council, and about attempting to get inspection restarted. Its inclination was to invade Iraq and overthrow the regime without specific authorisation from the Security Council, as it had just done in Afghanistan.

C, who had just returned from a visit to Washington, reported to the meeting that “the NSC [National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route”. Straw proposed to the meeting that “despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum”. This was agreed, one of the conclusions of the meeting being that the Foreign Secretary would “discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam”.

Straw proffered the opinion at the meeting that “Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN”. Straw was wrong: on 16 September 2002, Iraq announced that it would allow inspectors back in, which made it more awkward to pursue the ultimatum plan, even though by then the US administration had agreed to it.

Inspections blocked

Plainly, it wasn’t possible to get Saddam Hussein to refuse inspections, and thereby create a casus belli, if inspectors were already on the ground in Iraq, so the US/UK had to stop Iraq’s offer to admit inspectors being taken up. This required a swift about turn from clamouring for Iraq to admit inspectors to preventing the inspectors going in. Colin Powell told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee on 19 September 2002 that ways would be found to thwart the inspectors going in.

Ways were found. So, at a time when the Prime Minister was telling the House of Commons that Iraq’s proscribed weapons programmes were “active, detailed and growing”, he was working with the US to prevent inspection restarting, inspection that might have put a brake on this activity (if it was actually happening). It was two months before inspections began.

Resolution 1441

And it was no thanks to the US/UK that inspections began at all. The US/UK hoped that the Security Council would pass a resolution, prescribing an inspection regime that would be unacceptable to Saddam Hussein, and authorising military action if he refused. The draft resolution they proposed on 2 October 2002, which was passed as resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002 after considerable amendment, contained the following provisions (in paragraph 5):

(1) “any permanent member of the Security Council may request to be represented on any inspection team with the same rights and protections accorded other members of the team”

(2) “teams shall be accompanied at their bases by sufficient UN security forces to protect them”

(3) “[teams] shall have the right to declare for the purpose of this resolution no-fly/no-drive zones, exclusion zones, and/or ground and air transit corridors, (which shall be enforced by UN security forces or by member states)”

So, if this had been approved by the Council, US/UK forces would have been authorised to enter Iraq on the pretext of being part of the inspection process. And if Iraq refused to accept these provisions, the draft resolution authorised member states “to use all necessary means to restore international peace and security in the area” (paragraph 10). In other words, if Saddam Hussein refused to accept inspectors on these terms, the US/UK would have been unambiguously authorised by the Security Council to take military action against Iraq. In this event, there would have been no argument about the “legality” of military action against Iraq.

But the US/UK didn’t get their way: with France taking the lead, the special rights afforded to permanent members of the Council in the inspection process were removed, together with any suggestion that they could put forces on the ground in Iraq as part of the inspection process and the explicit authorisation of the use of force.

France voiced its objections to these provisions in the Security Council on 16 October 2002 in the following terms:

“… we reject measures that would in fact multiply the risk of incidents without improving the effectiveness of the work carried out by UNMOVIC and the IAEA. We also set store by the multinational, independent nature of the inspectors; any measure countering this fundamental element would be tantamount to repeating past mistakes [when US/UK intelligence operatives were part of UNSCOM] and would not have our support.”

France was interested in making practical arrangements for verifying the disarmament of Iraq by inspection. The US/UK were interested in putting conditions on inspection which Iraq wouldn’t accept, so that inspectors would never enter Iraq again, and they would have an excuse for military action to overthrow the regime.

Wrongfooting failure

This attempt to “wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors” failed: Iraq accepted inspection on the terms laid down in resolution 1441, while repeating that it had no “weapons of mass destruction”, which was true. Inspectors were allowed access to all sites in Iraq, and were allowed to destroy al-Samoud missiles, which were only marginally, if at all, beyond the 150 km range permitted by the original disarmament resolution (687).

The US/UK were in an awkward spot. How were they to justify overthrowing the Iraqi regime militarily, when it was obviously co-operating with the inspection process, and 11 out of the 15 members of the Security Council held the reasonable opinion that inspection should continue? They couldn’t even persuade the Security Council to agree that Iraq was in breach of resolution 1441 – this was what their draft “second” resolution said – let alone explicitly authorise military action because Iraq was in breach. They never even tried to do the latter, presumably because they thought it completely out of the question.

Goldsmith’s mumbo jumbo

This meant that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, had to work overtime to make a case that the use of force to effect regime change in March 2003 was already authorised by existing Security Council resolutions, and that the “second” resolution wasn’t necessary after all. See his written answer to Baroness Ramsey on 17 March 2003.

The source of this authority lay, Lord Goldsmith said, in resolution 678, passed on 29 November 1990, which authorised the use of force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It is not obvious why this resolution, passed for an entirely different purpose before any disarmament resolution was passed, could be said to authorise military action to enforce disarmament 12 years later – especially, since 12 years later, military action was opposed by 11 out of the 15 members of the Council. Nevertheless, Lord Goldsmith asserted that, if Iraq was in breach of 1441, resolution 678 passed in November 1990 authorised the use of force in March 2003.

But, who was to determine that Iraq was in breach of 1441? The Security Council had refused to do so by passing the “second” resolution. The US had always held the (convenient) opinion that any member state of the UN could decide if Iraq was in breach of Security Council resolutions, but no other state agreed with this proposition – until 17 March 2003, when Lord Goldsmith decided that the US was right after all.

So, as explained in the Butler Report (paragraphs 383-5), Lord Goldsmith wrote to the Prime Minister on 14 March 2003 seeking confirmation that it was the UK’s view that Iraq was in breach of 1441. The Prime Minister replied the next day saying, surprise, surprise, that Iraq was in breach. If our domestic courts worked on this principle, we would have a 100% conviction rate.

This mumbo jumbo, in which the Prime Minister himself acted as the sole arbiter of fact, has enabled him to assert in March 2003, and re-assert continuously since, that it was “legal” to take military action against Iraq to enforce Security Council disarmament resolutions.

Alternative: continue inspections

Of course, even if one accepts that the action was “legal” (whatever this means), the political decision to proceed was a separate matter. In his address to the nation on 20 March 2003, as British forces went into action, the Prime Minister justified this decision as follows:

“For 12 years, the world tried to disarm Saddam … . UN weapons inspectors say vast amounts of chemical and biological poisons, such as anthrax, VX nerve agent, and mustard gas remain unaccounted for in Iraq.

“So our choice is clear: back down and leave Saddam hugely strengthened; or proceed to disarm him by force. Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would I believe follow.”

But, if one was committed to disarmament rather than regime change, the alternative to military action in March 2003 was not “to back down and leave Saddam hugely strengthened”: it was to continue inspections. Even if one believed that Iraq had an arsenal of proscribed weapons and was manufacturing more, there was no need to invade Iraq, and overthrow the regime, in order to disarm it.

Inspection could have continued indefinitely and it stands to reason that, while inspection and other forms of surveillance were going on, Iraq’s ability to manufacture agents and weapons and deploy them, assuming it had a mind to, would be greatly inhibited.

The Government had intelligence to that effect – the Government’s official response to the Intelligence & Security Committee report of September 2003 said so:

“The Government accepts that the inhibiting effect of the UN inspections was relevant … . The JIC Assessments produced in October and December 2002 and again in March 2003 reflected this point. In December 2002 the JIC specifically pointed out that Iraq’s ability to use CBW might be constrained by the difficulty of producing more whilst UN inspectors were present.” (paragraph 21)

Understandably, the Prime Minister did not share this intelligence with the House of Commons, lest MPs got the impression that the continuation of inspections was an effective alternative to military action in order to disarm Iraq.

The bottom line was that the continuation of inspections was not an effective alternative for a Prime Minister who refused to budge in his support for regime change.

Other matters in minutes

The minutes of the 23 July 2002 meeting contain a number of other interesting snippets:-

(1) C on US intentions

C reported on his recent talks in Washington:

“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

The US administration making up intelligence and facts to justify policy? That couldn’t be true, could it?

(2) CDS on war plans

The CDS reported that the US had two broad options for military action. One, referred to as ‘Generated Start’, involved the build up of large numbers of troops over a few months (which was the one eventually used). The other, referred to as ‘Running Start’, involved using the troops already in theatre plus airpower. The latter was to be “initiated by an Iraqi casus belli”, according to the CDS.

Could it be that the US was going to pretend to be attacked by Iraqi forces, and respond accordingly? And the Prime Minister was prepared to go along with this deception?

(3) Hoon on ‘spikes of activity’

Geoff Hoon reported that “the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.

This refers to bombing activity by US/UK aircraft patrolling the No Fly Zones in Northern and Southern Iraq. The official story was that these aircraft bombed Iraqi air defence systems, only if they were “threatened” by these systems. But, in the spring and summer of 2002, suspicions grew that the bombing of Iraqi installations had increased dramatically. This was confirmed in a Ministry of Defence reply to a written question from Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, on 27 November 2002, which showed that in 2002 the amount of ordinance used had grown from nothing in March, through 0.3 tons in April to 7.3 in May, 10.4 in June, 9.5 in July, 14.1 in August and 54.6 in September.

This is what Hoon euphemistically referred to as ‘spikes of activity’. In reality, it was part of a process of softening up Iraqi air defences in preparation for war.

Prime Minister confronted

On three occasions recently (twice in election week) the Prime Minister was confronted in interviews with the fact that his Foreign Policy adviser, Sir David Manning, told the US administration in March 2002 that he “would not budge in” his “support for regime change”:

(1) On the Jonathan Dimbleby Programme on ITV1, on 13 March 2005

(2) On the election programme, ASK THE LEADER on ITV1, presented by Jonathan Dimbleby, on 2 May 2005, and

(3) On Today, on Radio 4, on 4 May 2005, when he was interviewed by John Humphries

In the first of these, the Prime Minister’s strategy was to deny that his stated refusal to budge referred to regime change. Instead, he pretended that it referred to the enforcement of the Security Council resolutions on disarmament. For example, he said:

“What he [Manning] said was this: we have to be absolutely clear that the development of WMD in breach of the United Nations resolutions will no longer be tolerated. ... it's that we would not budge in insisting that the United Nations resolutions that were outstanding, that had been outstanding for many years, were actually enforced and that was the crucial thing ...”

This is a straightforward lie: his unwillingness to budge, as reported by Manning, referred specifically to regime change. Furthermore, there is no mention whatsoever in the memo of outstanding United Nations disarmament resolutions, let alone that Blair would not budge from their implementation.

By the time he came to be interviewed in election week, the Prime Minister had prepared a different, and more plausible, defence, saying that he was always committed to regime change as a last resort, if disarmament couldn’t be achieved by any other means. For example, he told Jonathan Dimbleby:

“If you couldn’t enforce the UN resolutions by any other route, then you’d have to go down the route of regime change. …

“Now if it had been, as you say, and, as parts of the media have suggested, I’d made up my mind for regime change, come what may, what was the purpose of going back to the United Nations? …

“We went back to the United Nations in November. We got a resolution that said Saddam Hussein now had to let the inspectors back into Iraq; he has to comply immediately fully and unconditionally with them. He didn’t do so and that is the reason why we went to war.”

This makes sense until you remember

(a) that it wasn’t necessary to go back to the United Nations in November 2002 in order to get inspectors back into Iraq – since Iraq had agreed in September 2002 to allow them in but he and his friends in Washington blocked them, and

(b) that the Prime Minister was so enthusiastic for disarmament by inspection that he made it clear to the meeting on 23 July 2002 that he hoped that Iraq would not admit inspectors – and thereby provide a pretext for regime change.

The dialogue with John Humphries was on similar lines, and neither Jonathan Dimbleby nor John Humphries managed to breach his defence.

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