Bush and Blair 'talked about Iraq only three days after 9/11'

Published on Monday 30 November 2009 21:54

GEORGE Bush raised the issue of Iraq with Tony Blair only three days after the 9/11 attacks, the official inquiry into the war has heard.

Sir David Manning, Mr Blair's former foreign policy adviser, said Mr Bush told the then prime minister there could be a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in a telephone conversation on 14 September, 2001.

Sir David said that, throughout the period, Mr Blair had argued strongly in favour of trying to resolve the issue of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through the United Nations.

"The British government's view throughout this was disarmament. It was not regime change," he said.

He told the inquiry the issue of Iraq arose in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 at the end of the telephone conversation between Mr Bush and Mr Blair. "He (Mr Bush] said that he thought there might be evidence that there was some connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda," Sir David said.

"The prime minister's response to this was that the evidence would have to be very compelling indeed to justify taking any action against Iraq."

Mr Blair followed up the conversation with a letter stressing the need to focus on the situation in Afghanistan, where the 9/11 attacks originated.

But by the time Mr Blair went to visit Mr Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, the British were "very conscious that Iraq would be on the agenda".

On the first evening, Mr Bush and Mr Blair dined alone. The next morning, they met more formally with their senior advisers, including Sir David and US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Mr Bush briefed them on their private discussions.

"He told us that there was no war plan for Iraq but he had set up a small cell at Central Command in Florida to do some planning and to think through the various options," Sir David said.

"The prime minister added that he had been saying to the president that it was important to go back to the United Nations."

He said Mr Blair told him afterwards that Mr Bush had assured him he accepted that, if they did go through the UN, they had to accept that Saddam might allow the weapons inspectors to go back and complete their work.

"The prime minister commented to me that he concluded from this the president probably did want to build a coalition," he said. "I look back at Crawford as the moment that he (Mr Blair] was saying, yes, there is a route through this that is an international, peaceful one and it is through the UN, but if it doesn't work, we will be willing to undertake regime change."

In July, Sir David returned to Washington with a note from Mr Blair to Mr Bush stressing that Britain could support any action against Iraq only if they had been through the UN. To his surprise, Sir David said he was invited into the Oval Office to discuss it directly with the president.

"I repeated that it was impossible for the UK to take part in any action against Iraq unless it was through the UN. This was our preference, but it was also the political reality," he said.

In September, Mr Blair returned to the US for a meeting with Mr Bush at the presidential retreat at Camp David, which was attended by hawkish vice-president Dick Cheney. "My conclusion was that the president wished to expose the vice-president to the arguments in favour of going through the United Nations," Sir David said.

He said Mr Bush agreed that, if Saddam accepted the provisions of a new UN Security Council resolution requiring him to give up his WMD, they would have succeeded in "changing the very nature of the regime". The president said: "We would have cratered the guy."

Nevertheless, the British were still unsure whether Mr Bush would include a reference to a new Security Council resolution when he addressed the UN General Assembly a few days later.

"Shortly after the (General Assembly] speech, Dr Rice telephoned me to say that, in fact, he had been given the wrong text and that he had had to ad lib this, but fortunately he had put in this reference to the need to return and for new UN resolutions," he said.

Sir David said Mr Blair had first asked about the British military options for action in June 2002.

The inquiry continues.