Evidence of false statements made by Tony Blair to Parliament and the media 

Leaked Cabinet Office papers, September 2004:

Summary 

The Butler Report of July 2004 highlighted substantial omissions of evidence regarding Iraq, but did not argue that positively false information had been given by the Prime Minister to press or Parliament. On 18 September 2004, the Daily Telegraph published extracts from a series of newly leaked documents from the Cabinet Office. With one exception, none of these were quoted in the Butler Report.[1] The full texts of these documents: 

A)    Provide clear evidence that the Prime Minister substantively misled Parliament and press in claiming that:

a.       his government’s objective was disarmament, and not regime change by force; and that

b.      as late as February 2003, no decision had been taken to invade Iraq.

Instead, they show that Blair was fully committed to regime change as early as 8 March 2002, and communicated this position to Bush and his officials. This is substantive evidence of positive falsehood on the part of the Prime Minister, not simply an omission of evidence. 

B)     Demonstrate that a new Security Council Resolution in 2002 and renewed inspections were designed to provide a trigger for war, as part of an explicitly set-out sequence of actions by the US/UK to provide political and legal support for invasion. Claims by the Prime Minister and others that it was only Saddam’s unwillingness to cooperate with renewed inspections that led to war were therefore misleading. These policy documents clearly show an intention to use (and arguably abuse) the UN route to provide a legal pretext for pre-decided regime change, not as a route to peaceful disarmament. 

C)     Show that as early as March 2002 the Prime Minister was advised that

a.       intelligence on Iraqi weapons was “poor”;

b.      containment had been “partially successful”, preventing Iraq’s resumption of a nuclear programme and restricting chemical and biological weapons development;

c.       Iraq’s security threat was not increasing;

d.      as such “current intelligence is insufficiently robust” to meet the criteria of proof required for legal justification of invasion.

The Prime Minister’s decision, taken at least as early as March 2002, to commit to regime change by force, was thus taken against the background of advice that the threat from Iraq was NOT increasing; containment was judged to be “partially successful”; and that without Iraq’s renewed rejection of weapons inspections, such a course of action would, on available evidence, not gain legal sanction under the UN Charter.  

In addition, the documents demonstrate the scale of the misgivings expressed by the Prime Minister’s advisors to him and his ministers around the time that he committed to assisting regime change. The Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Secretary advised that:

a.            the invasion of Iraq could not guarantee a WMD-free Iraq;

b.           the invasion of Iraq could not guarantee a democratic Iraq;

c.            neither the US nor the UK had credible plans for the aftermath of regime change;

d.           the opposition groups relied upon so heavily before and after invasion were regarded by most Iraqis as “Western stooges”.

Contrary to recent assertions by the Prime Minister that at that time “the idea that we did not have a plan for afterwards is simply not correct”, the documents show that when the Prime Minister took the decision to support military regime change in March 2002, his officials warned him precisely that “none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured”, and that “Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions …[of] what happens on the morning after”.[2] 

Facsimiles of these documents can be seen at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9125.htm

 

If you have any comments, please contact:

 

Michael Lewis

Christ’s College

St Andrew’s Street

Cambridge CB2 3BU

 

Analysis 

A)   The Prime Minister’s concealment of his agreement to pursue regime change 

1. Two Downing Street memos from mid-March 2002, marked ‘Secret’, describe meetings between David Manning (then the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser and current UK ambassador to Washington) and Christopher Meyer (then UK ambassador to Washington), and senior members of the US administration. Both describe promises made to the US about the UK’s support for regime change.  

I said [to Condoleezza Rice] you [Blair] would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States.[3] 

On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option.[4] 

2. Contrary to his frequent public denials, therefore (see below), twelve months before war with Iraq, and eight months before UNSCR1441, the Prime Minister committed the UK to pursuing regime change. 

3. That the UK envisaged that regime change might involve invasion, rather than an internal coup or the assassination of Saddam Hussein, is made clear by a further document, marked ‘Secret’ and entitled ‘Iraq: Options Paper’, produced on 8 March 2002 by the Overseas and Defence Secretariat of the Cabinet Office. It states that “[s]ince 1991, our objective has been to re-integrate a law-abiding Iraq which does not possess WMD or threaten its neighbours, into the international community. Implicitly, this cannot occur with Saddam Hussein in power.”[5] The document considers three options for regime change: covert support for opposition groups to mount an uprising or coup; air support for opposition groups; and a full-scale ground campaign.[6]  

4. Although it suggests that the first two might be tried as preludes to the third, it concludes that: 

“[i]n sum, despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community.”[7] 

5. Although this document is a policy options paper rather than a formal commitment, it insists that a decision had to be taken relatively soon: “All options have lead times. If an invasion is contemplated this autumn, then a decision will need to be taken in principle six months in advance.”[8] In fact, Blair’s commitment to regime change in March 2002 demonstrates that such a decision preceded even this military timetable.  

6. Contrary to this evidence, the Prime Minister and other ministers repeatedly denied throughout 2002 and early 2003 that a decision had been taken to commit to regime change, and insisted that if Saddam complied with the inspectors, he would be allowed to remain in power. 

7. In an interview on 14 November 2002, Blair insisted that:  

So far as our objective, it is disarmament, not regime change - that is our objective. Now I happen to believe the regime of Saddam is a very brutal and repressive regime, I think it does enormous damage to the Iraqi people....but on the other hand I have got no doubt either that the purpose of our challenge from the United Nations is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, it is not regime change.[9] 

8. In his monthly press conference on 13 January 2003, Blair said:  

Of course no-one wants conflict, everyone would prefer this to be resolved peacefully.[10] 

9. In his monthly press conference on 18 February 2003, Blair again insisted:  

There is no inexorable decision to go to war but there is an inexorable decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. How that happens is up to Saddam….when we went to the UN last November, that was America taking the decision that if Saddam co-operated that disarmament would happen peacefully, without war and without regime change.[11] 

10. In the House of Commons on 25 February 2003, Blair continued to insist, contrary to his commitment to regime change, that Saddam could remain in power if he cooperated with weapons inspections:   

even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament through the UN. I detest his regime - I hope most people do - but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully.[12] 

11. Given the evidence of a policy decision taken to pursue regime change as early as March 2002, these statements could only be true if government policy changed from supporting regime change up to March 2002, to supporting disarmament between mid-2002 and February 2003; and returned to support for regime change in March 2003. Blair needs to demonstrate that this ostensibly unlikely scenario was indeed the case: if not, then these statements clearly show that he misled media and Parliament.

B)   UNSCR 1441 and the inspection regime designed to provide a trigger for war, as part of an explicitly set out sequence of actions by the US/UK to provide political and legal support for invasion 

12. In his memo on lunch with Paul Wolfowitz, Christopher Meyer reported to Downing Street that: 

“I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs”[13] 

12. This suggests that renewed inspections, provided by a new UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) in November 2002, were intended to make Saddam default, providing a justification for a pre-planned war. 

13. This is supported by the “Iraq: Options Paper” of 8 March, which establishes that renewed inspections and UNSCRs are part of a process explicitly designed to provide a pretext for war:

 

A legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to Law Officers advice, none currently exists. This makes moving quickly to invade legally very difficult. We should therefore consider a staged approach, establishing international support, building up pressure on Saddam, and developing military plans. There is a lead time of about 6 months to a ground offensive.[14]

            ….

            34. To launch such a [ground] campaign would require a staged approach:

* winding up the pressure: increasing the pressure on Saddam through tougher containment….A refusal to readmit UN inspectors, or their admission and subsequent likely frustration, which resulted in an appropriate finding by the Security Council could provide the justification for military action.

* careful [military] planning….

* coalition building: diplomacy….

* incentives: as an incentive guarantees will need to be made with regard to Iraq’s territorial integrity.

* tackling other regional issues [including the Middle East Peace Plan]

* sensitising the public: a media campaign to warn of the dangers that Saddam poses and to prepare public opinion both in the UK and abroad.[15] 

14. The paper thus explicitly establishes that the UN/weapons inspector route was designed, contrary to the assertions of the Prime Minister (cf. paras. 7-10), to lead to invasion, not to peaceful disarmament. 

15. A timescale is also suggested:            

Sufficient air assets would need three months and ground forces at least four-five months to assemble so on logistical grounds a ground campaign is not feasible until autumn 2002. The optimal times to start action are early spring[16] 

16. Yet in his 18 February press conference, Blair denied that a timetable had been considered:

QUESTION: I just want to come back to this point about timing. Once Hans Blix reports on the 28^th [February], how long does the Security Council have realistically to secure a second resolution after that? Is the request from the French of 14 March a realistic request to come back and discuss things then?

PRIME MINISTER: The reason I hesitate about setting timelines or making dates of some sort of defining significance is because if I do so I am doing something where decisions really have not been taken, and it depends frankly what happens over the next period of time.[17]

C)   Advice on Iraq’s weapons, the uncertainty of intelligence, and the lack of legal justification for offensive military action 

Iraq’s weapons and intelligence 

17. The September leaks strengthen many of the findings of the Butler Inquiry that the Prime Minister was advised that (a) Intelligence on Iraqi weapons was “poor”; (b) there was no new or imminent threat from Iraq’s weapons capability or intentions which might justify a change in policy.[18] 

18. The ‘Iraq: Options Paper’, quoted in the Butler inquiry’s report states that: 

As at [sic] least worst option, we have supported a policy of containment [since 1991] which has been partially successful. However: Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD, although our intelligence is poor. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime were threatened, though there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD.[19] 

Although it thus argues that Iraq continues to have a WMD capability, it suggests that its threat is not increasing: 

Since 1991, the policy of containment has been partially successful:

* Sanctions have effectively frozen Iraq’s nuclear programme;

* Iraq has been prevented from rebuilding its conventional arsenal to pre-Gulf War levels;

* ballistic missile programmes have been severely restricted;

* Biological Weapons (BW) and Chemical Weapons (CW) programmes have been hindered;

* No Fly Zones established over northern and southern Iraq have given some protection to the Kurds and the Shia. Although subject to continuing political pressure, the Kurds remain autonomous; and

* Saddam has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbours.[20] 

19. In a letter marked “Confidential and Personal” to Jack Straw on 22 September 2002, written to provide “thoughts for your [Jack Straw’s] personal note to the Prime Minister”, Peter Ricketts, the Political Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, reiterated the view that nothing had changed which might justify new efforts at disarmament:  

THE THREAT: The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September….even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.[21] 

20. The Prime Minister was definitely made aware of this view, passed on in a letter by Jack Straw on 25 March 2002: 

            WHAT IS WORSE NOW?

4. If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the US would now be considering military action against Iraq. In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL [Usama Bin Laden] and Al Qaida. Objectively the threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September.[22] 

Legal justification for offensive military action 

21. Given the current lack of evidence for an imminent threat, the ‘Iraq: Options Paper’ of March 2002 clearly argues that there is currently unlikely to be legal justification for an invasion:  

30. Currently, offensive military action against Iraq can only be [legally] justified if Iraq is held to be in breach of the Gulf War ceasefire resolution, 687….

31. As the ceasefire was proclaimed by the Security Council in 687, it is for the [UN Security] Council to decide whether a breach of obligations has occurred….

32. For the P5 and the majority of the Council to take the view that Iraq was in breach of 687:

they would need to be convinced that Iraq was in breach of its obligations regarding WMD, and ballistic missiles. Such proof would need to be incontrovertible and of large-scale activity. Current intelligence is insufficiently robust to meet this criterion.[23] 

22. Although the Butler Report has shown that Joint Intelligence Committee reports seen by the Prime Minister did harden their language about Iraq’s weapons between March and September 2002 (partly from intelligence which was subsequently withdrawn as unreliable), the Prime Minister, as we have seen, took the decision to remove Saddam in March 2002: when, according to advice given to him, the threat from Iraq was NOT increasing; containment was judged to be “partially successful”; and there was insufficient evidence as yet to legally justify military action.[24]  

23. Unless British policy changed from regime change to disarmament between 2002 and 2003, and back again in March 2003 (for which there is no evidence), then these papers indicate that British participation in the UN process between 2002 and 2003 was intended to provide a legal justification for regime change, not to pursue disarmament peacefully. 

D)  Advice that the invasion of Iraq might not produce a WMD-free Iraq, nor a democratic one; and that post-war planning, and even broad objectives, were inadequate 

Post-war planning and outcomes 

25. While Iraqi democracy is the clearly preferred outcome in the “Iraq: Options Paper” of March 2002, the paper is astonishingly unconfident that regime change will result either in Iraqi democracy or in long-term disarmament. The document even considers the UK accommodating the emergence of a “Sunni strongman” instead; and it stresses that neither democracy nor ‘strongman’ can guarantee a WMD-free Iraq: 

The US administration has lost faith in containment and is now considering regime change. The end states could either be a Sunni strongman or a representative government.            ….

11. In considering the options for regime change below, we need to first consider what sort of Iraq we want? There are two possibilities:

* A Sunni military strongman. He would be likely to maintain Iraqi territorial integrity. Assistance with reconstruction and political rehabilitation could be traded for assurances on abandoning WMD programmes and respecting human rights, particularly of ethnic minorities. The US and other militaries could withdraw quickly. However, there would be a strong risk of the Iraqi system reverting to type. Military coup could succeed coup until an autocratic Sunni dictator emerged who protected Sunni interests. With time he could acquire WMD; or

* A representative, broadly democratic government….Such a regime would be less likely to develop WMD and threaten its neighbours. However, to survive it would require the US and others to commit to nation-building for many years.….

27. But it should be noted that even a representative government could seek to acquire WMD and build-up its conventional forces, so long as Iran and Israel retain their WMD and conventional armouries.[25] 

26. In addition to these misgivings, Blair’s advisors also made it clear in March 2002 that they did not believe that the US had produced a convincing plan for Iraq’s replacement government and reconstruction. David Manning, describing his meeting with Condoleezza Rice, wrote: 

From what she [Condoleezza Rice] said, Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions:…what happens on the morning after?[26] 

27. In a letter to the Prime Minister of 25 March 2002 marked ‘Secret and Personal’, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was even less sanguine about the lack of both US and UK planning, and likely outcomes: 

We also have to answer the big question – what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole on this than on anything. Most of the assessments from the US have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq’s WMD threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better.

11. Iraq has NO history of democracy so no-one has this habit or experience.[27]  

28. Blair denied the absence of planning when these documents were made public, on 18 September 2004: 

And so the idea that we did not have a plan for afterwards is simply not correct. We did, and indeed we have unfolded that plan[28] 

Yet given the timing of decision-making revealed by these documents, they show that when the Prime Minister took the decision to support military regime change in March 2002, his officials warned him precisely that “none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured”, and that “Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions …[of] what happens on the morning after”.  They show that the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was taken well before any plans for his replacement had been produced – arguably an extremely reckless sequence of decision-making.

 

External Iraqi opposition groups

 

29. A major part of the UK/US pursuit of post-Saddam democracy was to give substantial public support throughout 2002 and 2003 to external Iraqi opposition groups. Yet the “Iraq: Options Paper” of 8 March 2002 had warned ministers that external Iraqi opposition groups were unlikely to provide credible members of successor regimes:

 

The external [Iraqi] opposition is weak, divided and lacks domestic credibility. The predominant group is the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organisation led by Ahmed Chalabi, a Shia and convicted fraudster, popular on Capitol Hill. The other major group, the Iraqi National Accord (INA), espouses moderate Arab socialism and is led by another Shia, Ayad Allawi….Most Iraqis see the INC/INA as Western stooges.[29]

 

30. Despite being told by UK advisors that they did not have any popular legitimacy, considerable weight was given by both the UK and the US governments to these groups in forming the post-Saddam regime. On 14 April 2003, Blair assured the House of Commons that:

 

In relation to the coalition and Iraqi opposition groups, I hope that some of the conspiracy theories about people simply being parachuted in to take over the country can be laid to rest. What is important is that, in the end, the legitimacy of anyone—from inside or outside Iraq—will rest on their support from the Iraqi people themselves.[30]

 

31. Yet on May 22 2003, in response to a question asking what government’s “policy is on the involvement of Mr. Ahmed Chalabi in the post-war government in Iraq”,

Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien wrote that:  

Chalabi is a prominent opposition figure. It is therefore only appropriate that the group he represents should be able to play a role in Iraq's future. But that role is for the people of Iraq to determine.[31] 

[Ahmed Chalabi was subsequently appointed by the US/UK-led Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi Governing Council on 13 July 2003.] 

32. On 20 July 2004, Blair told the House of Commons that:  

If people read the letter from Dr. Allawi, published only the other day, they will see that he set out the authentic voice of Iraq and its future—what Iraq can now become.[32] 

[Ayad Allawi, leader of the INA, was appointed Interim Prime Minister of Iraq on 28 May 2003.]