The Report of the Iraq Inquiry
383. Mr Blair expressed his views in frequent telephone calls and in meetings with the
President. There was also a very active channel between his Foreign Affairs Adviser and
the President’s National Security Advisor. Mr Blair also sent detailed written Notes to the
President.
384. Mr Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s Chief of Staff, told the Inquiry:
“... the Prime Minister had a habit of writing notes, both internally and to President Clinton and to President Bush, on all sorts of subjects, because he found it better to put something in writing rather than to simply talk about it orally and get it much more concretely ... in focused terms.”[1]
385. Mr Blair drew on information and briefing received from Whitehall departments, but evidently drafted many or most of his Notes to the President himself, showing the drafts to his close advisers in No.10 but not (ahead of despatch) to the relevant Cabinet Ministers.
386. How best to exercise influence with the President of the United States is a matter for the tactical judgement of the Prime Minister, and will vary between Prime Ministers and Presidents. In relation to Iraq, Mr Blair’s judgement, as he and others have explained, was that objectives the UK identified for a successful strategy should not be expressed as conditions for its support.
387. Mr Powell told the Inquiry that Mr Blair was offering the US a “partnership to try to get to a wide coalition” and “setting out a framework” and to try to persuade the US to move in a particular direction.[2]
388. Mr Blair undoubtedly influenced the President’s decision to go to the UN Security Council in the autumn of 2002. On other critical decisions set out in the Report, he did not succeed in changing the approach determined in Washington.
389. This issue is addressed in the Lessons section of this Executive Summary, under the heading “The decision to go to war”.
Decision‑making
390. The way in which the policy on Iraq was developed and decisions were taken and implemented within the UK Government has been at the heart of the Inquiry’s work and fundamental to its conclusions.
391. The Inquiry has set out in Section 2 of the Report the roles and responsibilities of key individuals and bodies in order to assist the reader. It is also publishing with the Report many of the documents which illuminate who took the key decisions and on what
