The Report of the Iraq Inquiry
366. The UK Government was right to think very carefully about both of those points.
367. First, the close strategic alliance with the US has been a cornerstone of the UK’s foreign and security policy under successive governments since the Second World War. Mr Blair rightly attached great importance to preserving and strengthening it.
368. After the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, that relationship was reinforced when Mr Blair declared that the UK would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the US to defeat and eradicate international terrorism.[1] The action that followed in Afghanistan to bring about the fall of the Taliban served to strengthen and deepen the sense of shared endeavour.
369. When the US Administration turned its attention to regime change in Iraq as part of the second phase of the “Global War on Terror”, Mr Blair’s immediate response was to seek to offer a partnership and to work with it to build international support for the position that Iraq was a threat which had to be dealt with.
370. In Mr Blair’s view, the decision to stand alongside the US was in the UK’s long‑term national interests. In his speech of 18 March 2003, he argued that the handling of Iraq would:
“... determine the way in which Britain and the world confront the central security threat of the 21st century, the development of the United Nations, the relationship between Europe and the United States, the relations within the European Union and the way in which the United States engages with the rest of the world. So it could hardly be more important. It will determine the pattern of international politics for the next generation.”
371. In his memoir in 2010, Mr Blair wrote:
“I knew in the final analysis I would be with the US, because it was right morally and strategically. But we should make a last ditch attempt for a peaceful solution. First to make the moral case for removing Saddam ... Second, to try one more time to reunite the international community behind a clear base for action in the event of a continuing breach.”[2]
372. Concern about the consequences, were the UK not to give full support to the US, featured prominently in policy calculations across Whitehall. Mr Hoon, for example, sought advice from Sir Kevin Tebbit, MOD Permanent Under Secretary, on the implications for the alliance of the UK’s approach to Iraq.[3]
373. Although there has historically been a very close relationship between the British and American peoples and a close identity of values between our democracies, it is an
