622. In his statement to the Inquiry, Mr Blair said:
“... with hindsight, we now see that the military campaign to defeat Saddam was relatively easy; it was the aftermath that was hard. At the time, of course, we could not know that and a prime focus throughout was the military campaign itself…”[1]
623. The conclusions reached by Mr Blair after the invasion did not require the benefit of hindsight.
624. Mr Blair’s long‑standing conviction that successful international intervention required long‑term commitment had been clearly expressed in his Chicago speech in 1999.
625. That conviction was echoed, in the context of Iraq, in frequent advice to Mr Blair from Ministers and officials.
626. Between early 2002 and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Mr Blair received warnings about:
• the significance of the post‑conflict phase as the “strategically decisive” phase of the engagement in Iraq (in the SPG paper of 13 December 2002[2])
• and the risk that a badly handled aftermath would make intervention a “net failure” (in the letter from Mr Hoon’s Private Office to Sir David Manning of 19 November 2002[3]);
• the likelihood of internal conflict in Iraq (including from Mr Powell on 26 September 2002, who warned of the need to stop “a terrible bloodletting of revenge after Saddam goes. Traditional in Iraq after conflict”[4]);
• the potential scale of the political, social, economic and security challenge (including from Sir Christopher Meyer (British Ambassador to the US) on 6 September 2002: “it will probably make pacifying Afghanistan look like child’s play”[5]);
• the need for an analysis of whether the benefits of military action outweighed the risk of a protracted and costly nation‑building exercise (including from Mr Straw on 8 July 2002: the US “must also understand that we are serious about our conditions for UK involvement”[6]);
• the absence of credible US plans for the immediate post‑conflict period and the subsequent reconstruction of Iraq (including from the British Embassy
- ↑ Statement Blair, 14 January 2011, page 14.
- ↑ Paper [SPG], 13 December 2002, ‘UK Military Strategic Thinking on Iraq’.
- ↑ Letter Watkins to Manning, 19 November 2002, ‘Iraq: Military Planning after UNSCR 1441’.
- ↑ Manuscript comment Powell to Manning on Letter McDonald to Manning, 26 September 2002, ‘Scenarios for the future of Iraq after Saddam’.
- ↑ Telegram 1140 Washington to FCO London, 6 September 2002, ‘PM’s visit to Camp David: Iraq’.
- ↑ Letter Straw to Prime Minister, 8 July 2002, ‘Iraq: Contingency Planning’.
