Section 3.3 of the Chilcot Report covers the spring-summer of 2002 after Prime Minister Tony Blair told President Bush that the United Kingdom would work with the U.S. against Saddam. England was trying to set out a plan of action that the two countries could follow including going to the United Nations and creating an overall strategy. London believed that if the U.S. was going to war with Iraq, it should take part and that meant it would have a say.
After Blair and Bush met
in Texas in April 2002 the UK confirmed its support for military action
against Iraq and began lobbying Washington. For example on May 8 Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw told Secretary of State Colin Powell that England would
stand with the U.S. On May 17 Blair’s foreign policy adviser David Manning went
to Washington and told National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that they had
to get weapons inspections back into Iraq to get public support for any war.
Blair believed that a new U.N. resolution on Iraq was important not only for
his own country but to win international support. It was also necessary to
provide a legal basis for war. This was the tradeoff he was offering, England
would commit forces to any war and the U.S. would agree to use the United
Nations. This would turn out to be the only victory for London in its effort to
influence the Americans.
While England made this pledge it was also very worried
about Washington’s plans. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and various officials
from his ministry warned the government that the U.S. was in advanced stages of
its invasion plan by the summer of 2002 but had no strategy behind it. For
example there was no idea of what kind of end state it wanted in Iraq after the
overthrow of Saddam. The UK believed it had to come up with a political plan
for Iraq as a result, and convince the U.S. to back it. The British were right,
the U.S. was charging into war with no real vision. It had unrealistic
beliefs that everything would be great after the war because the Iraqis
would welcome them as liberators, the Iraqi government would still be
functioning, and that it could therefore leave quickly. At the same time,
President Bush argued that the U.S. would create a democracy after Saddam,
something that would obviously take a long time commitment. Those two opposing
views were never reconciled and it appeared no one cared in Washington.
Ironically, the British never came up with their own plan despite these
misgivings leaving everything to the Americans despite the fact that London
knew the U.S. was lacking in this department.
In July the Blair government was again warned about the
shortcomings in Washington. On July 23 Blair met with his national security
staff. Joint Intelligence Committee Chairman John Scarlett said that Bush
wanted to remove Saddam based upon terrorism and WMD, and that intelligence was
being fixed to justify regime change. Scarlett also noted that the National Security
Council did not believe in going to the U.N. about Iraq. Attorney General Peter
Lord Goldsmith warned that wanting to get rid of Saddam did not provide legal
justification for war under international law. Blair argued that removing
Saddam and getting rid of his WMD were linked. This conversation was later
released to the public as the Downing Street memo. Blair responded by sending a
letter to Bush that the two countries had to go to the United Nations to make
its case against Iraq. London eventually convinced Washington of this,
resulting in a new U.N. resolution on Iraq demanding weapons inspections at the
end of 2002.
From the spring to summer 2002 the Blair government must have
felt that it’s Iraq strategy was succeeding. It was being informed about
thinking going on in Washington and the differences between the two countries.
London would not budge on the United Nations. Inexplicably it was indifferent
about the fact that the Bush government had no plans for the day after Saddam.
Despite various warnings, Blair never made this a major issue. He seemed to be
more focused upon the immediate situation of finding a legal justification for
the war, rather than what the war would mean and could its aftermath be pulled
off. This short sightedness would prove to haunt both the Blair and Bush
administrations in the long run.
SOURCES
The
Iraq Inquiry, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry,” 7/6/16
Mazarr, Michael, Leap
of Faith, Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy,
New York: Public Affairs, 2019
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Chilcot Report Section 3.2 Development of UK Strategy and Options, January to April 2002 - "Axis Of Evil" to Crawford
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