kattegat's about its reliability. was that your understanding? >> the principal intelligence that we had in the butler inquiry was that our knowledge -- but it is clear that saddam continues his program. can i say one thing? it troubles me, bendery distinction between regime change and wmd's. . to me because i think that it gives a different sense of the threat of the nature of saddam's regime. the fact that there are some

accounts a million casualties in the iran iraq war, 100,000 kurds that were being killed, 100,000 killed by political killings. we had the kuwait situation were again tens of thousands died. the actual use of chemical weapons against its own people. it's always important to remember from my perspective the nature of the regime did make a difference to the nature of the wmd threats. >> that actually is my next >> that actually is my next question and i put it in a but given the information available to you and given these caveats, were there no other aspects of the iraqi regime but to focus every better be safe for the u.n. route, as a better basis for the legality of the region? >> you mean? >> in terms of all the things you describe in your speeches and about saddam's brutality to which you were saying just now about aziza wmd on kurds, on the

shia? >> i think i actually said it a.b. in the chicago speak unturned speech or else well. there were many regimes of actors due to the back of but you can't go through them and remove all the dictatorships. people often say to me about mukai beat in zimbabwe and the burma regime and so on. but you have to have a basis that is about a security threat. so yester absolutely right. my assessment of the security threat was intimately connected with the nature of the regime. when you actually read the destruction descriptions of what happened with chemical weapons in halabja village and by some accounts of many as 5000 people died and there is some people in iraq but that the consequences of that. to me that indicated a mindset that was terrific.

it's horrific whether or not he then uses weapons of mass destruction if there's any question question of using it, it's a mindset that indicates this is a profoundly wicked and i would say i'm a psychopathic man. we were obviously worried that after his two sons seem to be as bad as ours. so yes it's absolutely true this definitely impacted our thinking. >> your contrasting in a way what was known about saddam's past use of wmd. he resorted to be not a wait and not given the same weight to the doubts and caveats about the actual situation in early 2002. no, i think very much we did give way to that and that's why by the time you get to september 2002 you got a lot more information. but, it's one of the things most difficult sometimes because people look at this in the light of what we know now. saddam and weapons of mass

destruction was not a counterintuitive notion. you know, he had used them, and he definitely have done. he was in breach of, i think i'm a ten united nations them. and so, in a sense, it would require quite strong evidence the other way to have been doubting the fact that he had this program. >> sarah lawrence freedman will ask you about the september dossier. i would like to move on for a moment to another aspect and that is you set on a number of occasions in 2002 indeed in early 2003 that iraq was a test of the international community's ability to deal with both wmd and terrorism. if i could just quote from your monthly press conference on the 18th of february 2003. the stance that the world takes now against saddam is not just vital in its own right, it is a huge test of our seriousness in

dealing with the twin threats of weapons of mass distraction and terrorism. can you tell us how you saw those links, and again, what evidence you had that there were links? because as you know, the butler committee has established that there weren't direct links at that time between saddam and al qaeda. >> the link was, in my mind, at that time, this, that there was a proliferation threat that was potentially growing, because we had in iran, we have north korea, we have libya, we had iraq obviously. but with a lot of emphasis on a.q. khan activities. my fear was and i would say i hoped this will be stronger today than i did back then as a

result of what iran particularly today is doing. my fear is that states that are highly repressive or failed, the danger of a wmd link is that they become porous, they construct all sorts of different alliances with people and yet it's true we did not have evidence that saddam was, for example, behind the september 11th attacks and part of the difference between ourselves and the americans was the always said we don't accept that. it is interesting and this is referred to in the butler report however. that actually zarqawi did go into iraq, in fact prior to the invasion. now when i look at because i spent a lot of time obviously out of the region today. when i look at the way iran today links up with terror groups and this is a different topic for a different day, but i would say that a large part of

duty stabilization in the middle east that the present time comes for moran. the link between iran having nuclear weapons capability and those types of terrorist organizations, the combination of fat that makes them particularly dangerous. so you're absolutely right, margin, we were in a position back then were poor actually sent to the americans, looks at him and al qaeda are two separate things. i was worried these two things have come together the notion of states proliferating wmd and terrorist groups. by filling that is a major risk today. mac weather indications in the information you're getting that there were links that there were somehow links between other terrorist organizations and hand him his potential to wmd. >> there is obviously saddam and the funding of palestine, the families of palestinian suicide bombers and so on. i think what's very interesting that we will come back to this

later. when you look at what happened in iraq and what happened indeed in afghanistan today, and what happened in yemen today, somalia, many different countries around the region, there are very strong links between terrorist organizations and states that will support or sponsor them. and the reason why i think this is a particular danger today is because there are these days, it ran in particular, that are linked to this extreme and in my view misguided view about islam. so i think it is -- we still face the threat today in my view very powerfully. >> finally in 2002, did you feel this terror wmd link was also a potential threat to the united kingdom? >> yes, for the reasons i've given. i think these as that happened before, as the dumb freed from sanctions was ableéyéyéyéyéyéyéy

when you get to the nuclear issue -- iran, north career -- it is put far ahead of iraq, so given what you are saying about the iran issue, i wonder why iraq was chosen president iran.

-- chosen rather then iran. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy >> you start with the one in breach of resolution. we started back then, and as a result, countries could alter their behavior for a time. iran did change its behavior to begin with research -- with respect to its nuclear program. libya gave up its nuclear wmd program >> they have been wrong on the network. >> they have been wrong, but it is interesting when they finally gave it up. we actually discovered they had

a more extensive program than we saw. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy one thing is difficult is people say it is iraq or pakistan, or yesterday we had a conference on yemen. i am afraid my view is that -- >> i want to clarify, because it is quite important what you said. as i understand, you basically said there are a number of countries that are serious threats on the new -- and were further ahead on the nuclear side. what was important about iraq was we had a route to get at them through the united nations, so it was partly for the exemplary of fact that we

have your route to do with this rather than it was necessarily the most important. >> we had to deal with all of them, but you are absolutely right. the reason we focused on iraq with the history of un resolutions being breached, and also -- i think this is a pretty important point. he used them, and not his own people merely but thousands of people in iraq and iran. >> you have also indicated what changed since 9-11 with the risk calculus' more than specifics of intelligence. you now fink you can go down -- now think you can go down to get iraq focusing on weapons of mass destruction. does that not make the specifics

of intelligence more important than just part of the broader sense of the regime? >> that is absolutely correct. we came under pressure, and it would lead up to the publication of the dossier in september. we came under enormous pressure to say what our intentions actually tell us, and that is why between march of 2002 and the actual publication on the september 24, 2002, the intelligence committee was active. >> we have had a lot of these hearings about the origins of dossiers, and i do not want to go into that now, but to issue stand out. the particular question, many

claim a more generalization for intelligence was beyond doubt. the 45 minute claim is very specific and very controversial. that is to say the intelligence reserved for short-range use, but that specificity was lost in the document. >> it is absolutely right that is what itxd was to do with. in respect to the 45 minutes, as you know, this was the headline i saw the game "the evening standard" the next day. i said on many occasions it would have been better to correct the significance it later took on, but can i 0.1 thing out? she did an analysis between the publication of the dossier of

the 24th of september 2002 and may, 2003, which alleged we have entered this probably knowing it was wrong, and obviously, that kicked off a huge controversy that goes on to this day. between september 2002 and may, 2002, there were 40,000 parliamentary questions on iraq. it was mentioned twice. there were 5000 oral questions. on the 18th of march, no one mentions it. >> i can think of a speech in february where he does mention it. >> all i am saying is -- >> i appreciate that. >> i think it is taking on the significance possibly because it is taking an indication of how evidence that may be pointed was given even more.

in the way the dossier was written, so there is a question about its impact, and we may agree it was an immediate impact, but if the and the client. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy did you understand the difference between the 45 minutes related to munitions and say a long ridge -- long-range missile? >> it was never mentioned again by may. as i indicated in the light of what subsequently happened and the importance it took on, it would have been better to have corrected it. however, if i could make the

point about what you quite rightly said -- is not surprising it takes on significance because of the controversy over the intelligence that was wrong. it is that very reason we held the inquiry into whether we had assurances from downing street, and we did not. >> i think it has been established in that sense the dossier was not doctored. it is more a question of how the particular bit of intelligence was presented using its specificity in gaining a broader meaning, so just to clarify from what you said, you seem to be saying you had not paid a lot of attention to this, so when it

appeared in the forward, you were not aware yourself that you were saying something that went beyond what intelligence would allow? >> correct, and i mention that in my statement without any great emphasis, and i mention it in real 3 do reasonably sensible terms. >> -- i mention it in reasonable terms. >> the next headlines, it was not just a question of the discussion. presumably, at this point, it must have struck you something had hit home. were you at all concerned that intelligence of a certain nature was getting an exaggerated sense of importance?

>> the thing that strikes me most now when you go back to the dossier, it was received, and it really assumed a vastly greater importance of a later time, precisely because of the allocation that downing street deliberately falsified the intelligence, which of course, we had not. >> the importance is partly its immediate impact, and no doubt you're right to say the general view, but if it was, it was saying something quite important, that we had the death of intelligence on iraq -- we had a detailed intelligence on iraqi wmd, and if it was considered old news, it was because you had already been

successful in establishing the point of view. ñr>> i think you would have been hard-pressed to find virtually anybody who doubted he had wmd capabilities and programs. we had been through this whole saga, 10 years of military action, so it was not that so much. i just point out that in the statement with the dossier, and it was the statement people have heard rather than the forward -- i say specifically, i agree i cannot say this month or this year he will use his weapons, so the issue was not that he was about to launch his attack. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy

>> what i am trying to get at is the quality of intelligence. i see no proof, and the issue that is now important, because you have decided to go down the euan route, is that that the tail is going to be tested. you had a press conference in october were president yeltsin said he did not believe in itñi, and you said that isñr to find out. >> i was merely reflecting on the fact that it was all whole issue -- >> just to keep focused at the moment, the actual quality of

intelligence the british had and the americans had was more important about whether this was a shared assumption because we were proposing having dossiers' published the president had promised to take this to the human, which the qualities -- to the un, which the quality was important. this is important. we get to it -- it said in a forward be assessed intelligence said they continue to produce biological weapons. you have already mentionedñr th. givenñr that, wasn't this settig

yourself up for a higher standard of proof than it might be possible to sustain? >> what i said in the forward was that i believe beyond doubt -- i believe the assessment has established that he has continued to produce biological weapons. i did believe it, and i did believe it beyond doubt. >> beyond your doubt, but beyond anybody's doubt? >> if i had taken the words out of the march 2002 assessment, if i said it was clear that rather than i believe beyond doubt, it

would have the same impact. i believe now -- i think it is relevant as well. now i would take the government right out of this. i would simply have published for the assessment, because they were absolutely strong enough on their own, and if you look at the dossier itself and take the executive summary, this was not drawn up by me. it was drawn up by the joint intelligence committee. it is hard to come to any other conclusions that they have a continuing wmd program, and we will come at a later point to the issue of what the truth was about some of -- about him,

because they have resolved the conundrum, and we can see what happened, but if you go back to that time, if you read the executive summary and information that follows, i cannot see how anyone can come to a different conclusion. >> that is maybe another lesson. intelligence is described as joining up the talks, and there was a very powerful hypothesis that allowed you to join the dots in a particular way, but there were hypostasis at the time, so it is partly a question of due diligence. was that a challenge to intelligence? are you absolutely sure there

was not another way of explaining this? >> when you promise me they have given this information, you have got to rely on the people during this with integrity, and now we look back on the situation differently. let me say what was troubling me at the time. supposeñi we put it the other wu was not doing anything, that is what worries me. when i talked earlier about the calculus ofxrm-1ññi itxd isçó ry important to understand this as far as the decision i took and frankly would take against. if there was any possibility

that he could develop weapons of mass destruction, we should stop it. that was my view. >> this is a different standard than the one you're going to have to take from the united nations. he observed the over promised and under delivered. in some ways, were you too trusting? >> the most difficult thing when you're faced with a situation like this is that it all depends what happens afterwards as to how people regard your behavior of the term, and i have also been in

situations where, for example, we had the july, 2005, bombings were people were saying, look at this, or the americans for september 11 had congressional hearings into intelligence, and your worry is not simply is the intelligence correct so i can act. your worry is, if it is correct, what am i going to do about it. is think these things now look quite different. this results some of the riddles as to what he was up to, but it think it was at least reasonable for me at the time, given this evidence and given what the joint committee was telling me

to say this was a threat we should take very seriously. >> i think the committee referred to a group think, where the hypothesis is reinforced. did you get a sense the intelligence community were also reinforcing your hypothesis as well as the other direction? >> i certainly got the sense they were. when we actually came to the november un resolution, nobody disputed the issue of wmd. they disputed what we should do aboutçó it, but it really was nt something people disputed at the

time, and it is interesting. i wasñi looking back over the debate we had on the publication of the dossier, and just recognizing -- of course, everyone now has a different perception of this, but at the áq were peo, i did not want military action under any circumstance. there were also people saying, you are wasting time. you are not acting fast enough. for example, in the statement on the 24th of september, 2002, william hague says the president's recollected various states requiring nuclear capabilities and their

capability had been underestimated. must have rescinded their ability to do so has been greatly underestimated. estimates today of iraq taking several years to acquire nuclear device to be seen in a context within that margin of error and given that information -- a >> firstly, could you go more slowly and secondly there is a difference between a state could be made by a member of the opposition as it is clear that the opposition at the time did take threats very seriously. i come back to when i'm going to stop at this point, by going to the u.n., where the pressure would be for the inspectors to test this out, a higher standard of proof was now going to be required for these assertions. it was not good enough to have reasonable confidence on the basis of saddam's past behavior if you really did not have to be very sure of your case. >> absolutely, of course we should have been very sure about

our case. all i'm saying is that all the intelligence we received and even master the september dossier was to the same effect that it wasn't against that. and the reason i simply was -- i'll spare you the stenographer and not go back over the reading of the quotes. what i'm saying to you, however, is there were people perfectly justifiable and sensibly, also saying that this gives you some idea of the context of the time, look, you can sit around and wait for this. you know, you have got to take action and to take action clearly and definitively. and so one of the most difficult aspects of all of those in iraq is that people often say to political leaders quite understandably, say listen to the people and what you find in circumstances of great controversy is that actually there are different views, and in the end you have to decide. and i decided that the

intelligence justified are considering saddam was a significant and continuing wmd threats and we had to act on it. >> okay, i think sir martin? >> but i does make a couple of quick request to try to help understand the white direct? why now? obviously, we like you have read to the assessments of the set time. but the intelligence is telling you that the wmd threat of iraq was growing quite >> yes, it was telling me that in two respects. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy

at the time, we did not know that. on the 12th of september, after the ninth of september, before we d(thee1 dossierñr, i was told about these mobile production facilities for biological weapons, so this was a new factor, and this was very much linked to that. >> in terms of the program? >> in the dossier, we set out in detail form were all the different items we had been trying to procure, which could indicate a continuing interest in nuclear weapon. éyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéyéy

here is the problem, and we face the same problem in iran. >> iran is much further down the track. >> there are debates about that. if you ask people with respect to iraq, some people would say, if they are doing it on their own, it is going to take a significant amount of time, but you can shorten that time if you buy in the material, and one reason i have decided on this issue is it always worried me that any of these countries if they were so minded could step up very quickly. >> once he asked you about the threats to the united kingdom, you said if saddam, freed from sanctions, were to be able to

pursue wmd programs, you're pretty sure the u.k. would be involved, but he had not been freed from sanctions or an arms embargo or other opera the suit -- apparatuses, and other countries just as opposed as a loss and many much closer to iraq clearly did not agree military action was needed or justified by the level of threat at that time. i am trying to worry -- find out why you did and they did not. >> there is a judgment you have to make. ñrxdyou are rightxd, but becdáqf was not prepared to run that risk. ñixdñi>> and theyñr were? >> that is up to them.

i think the view of many other countries -- won the iraq action with america. i think it is an interesting point. you're absolutely right to raise the judgment. in the end, this is what it is. people say this is about a deception -- this was about a decision, and the decision i had to make is given his history, given 10 years of breaking un resolution, could we take the risks of this man reconstituting his weapons program, or is the a risk it would be responsible to take? i had to take this position, and

i believe -- so did parliament -- that we were right not to run this risk. in the end, what this was all about is the risk, and the reason it was so important is because today we are going to be faced with exactly the same types of decisions, and we're going to have to make that judgment on risk. my judgment -- may be other people do not take this view. my judgment is you do not take any risk on this issue. >> one more thing on intelligence. at the time of the september dossier, where there are aspects of iraq's wmd program that you knew of that could not be revealed to the public at this time? >> i say practically everything

relevant to this was in the jic statement, the actual body of the dossier, so i cannot think of specific items. dossier so i can't think of specific items, but there were various things -- spearman with regard to the growing threat which is risk on the information the was published in the dossier and the information that came in shortly before the dossier was published. >> we're going to come shortly to the military planning. i would like before to put a more general question to the presentation of government policy in 2002 when he ran asked from 2002 whether the u.k. was preparing for possible reaction

your public statement suggested that it was not. for example you told the house of commons in the committee in july 2002 when they asked are we prepared for paltry to leave possible military action against iraqi replied there are no decisions taken about a little reaction. yet we've heard from other witnesses that while no operational decisions were taken a whole range of decisions were being taken about military options including a joint planning with the united states. my question is what it not have been reasonable for you and in the expedient to the explain publicly much earlier than you did that while the u.k. hoped for a peaceful outcome and saddam hussein we were preparing for all eight central is including military action. islamic that is a perfectly fair point i think, sir martin. let me explain the problem there. we have not decided we would

take military action at that point. on the other hand you couldn't say it was a possibility and in the part of the you just read out you notice i choose the words quite careful i see no decisions have been taken and the trouble was people kept writing, they decided they are off on a military campaign and nothing is going to stop them, so we were in this difficulty that had i said maybe in retrospect it's better just to say it but had i said is we are doing military planning our future was people would push you into a position he would appear to be on an irreversible path to milledge reaction that wasn't our position, our position was we wanted to get america wn root and get a resolution through the united nations. but because it was obvious with a history of this you couldn't be sure that the united nations wrote was going to work in fact the likelihood is that it

wouldn't but nonetheless, the we had to do military planning for it. >> you several military witnesses who have told us the need for the secrecy was proving quite an impediment to various aspects of preparation. didn't you have the skill to explain to parliament what you just said to me we were still determined on the u.n. brooch and peaceful resolution. >> parliament can be quite a tricky for on on which to engage in a nuanced exercise is my experience after the ten years of the primm esters questions but it's perfectly fair point and toward the end of october i think jeff said to me you've got to come and take certain decisions. i do want to emphasize because it is important if at any point the military said look you're going to hit our ability to do this if we can have physical

planning then obviously and that is what happened in october and then obviously we would have had to have changed that but my worry was you were going to be in the situation people assume that which is what in fact been decided, so we had for prudent and sensible reasons to carry on doing this military planning and we were doing it as much as we could under the radar as it were but i can't say it made much difference in the end so it is a fair point you are making. >> i want to move on to the diplomacy. we had a lot of evidence on the negotiation of resolution 1441, clearly getting president bush to agree to go to the united nations was a game changer in many ways because it meant your

basic need in taking it forward in british politics have been meant that it has to go through the united nations and we've heard a lot of the difficulties in the negotiations and mr. jeremy greenstock and we've been through the resolution is also you might say this arcane details we've done all of that. i would like therefore to test for work if i may to your meeting with president bush in washington on tough 31st january, 2003. was your main objective at that meeting to convince the president that just as you had convinced him that it was im >> yes, a second resolution was going to make life a lot easier in basically every respect.

the difficulty was this. they had to be very clear, and i know you have gone through this with enormous detail, but to emphasize the point, it was a strong resolution. it declared iraq was a material breach. it said it had fully to cooperate, and it was a strong resolution. it mentioned previous resolutions. the truth is, there was an unresolved issue, but some countries wanted to come back and only have a decision for action with a un resolution- mandated action, but

politically, it would have been far easier. >> from the evidence we have heard, the last of size you have from lord smith before you went to washington was that at the time he believed the legal position was that we did need it. believed the legal position was we did need second resolution. >> there was that issue as well and the was another reason why getting a second resolution would have been important. although peter was not i don't think saying that that resolution had to be in those terms that he needed to come back for a further decision as it works. >> for the decision. exactly. and we've also heard from jack straw that politically at home it seemed to be important to get back because it would make life easier for you and the parliamentary party and the cabinet and so on. >> yes, absolutely.

>> what was the president's view of the need for a second resolution? >> present push's view and the view of the entire american system was that by that time saddam had been given an opportunity to comply. i think the resolution 1441 said it was a final opportunity and he hadn't taken it. indeed what we now know is that he was continuing to act in breach of u.n. resolutions even after the inspectors had gone back in there. so the american view was -- the american view throughout had been, as you know, this letter isn't going to change his spots he is always going to be difficult. and so that was their concern about the ulin route, in a sense was that they get pulled into a given process, you never get to a proper decision and then you never get the closure of the issue in the way that you should. the problem, obviously from our perspective, is that we have gone down the ulin route and wanted to carry on giving down

the ulin route, but the americans had taken the view -- and in a sense we took the same view of the iraqi behavior up to that period at the end of january -- that they were not complying. >> said to be clear, the president's view was that it really wasn't necessary, but he was prepared to work for one? >> his view was that it wasn't necessary but he was prepared to work for one. >> now it's been reported in "the new york times" in 2006 that the president said at that meeting that the americans would put the work behind the effort if it ultimately failed, military action would follow any way. is that correct? >> the president's view was if you can't get a second resolution because in essence france and russia are going to say no, even though in fact i don't think they were disputing iraq was in breach of resolution

1441, then we were going to be faced with a choice i never wanted to be faced with. did you go without a second resolution, and my view very strongly was that if he was in breach of 1441 we should mean what we said it was a final opportunity to comply. he wasn't complaining. >> so your position at the time was that if you couldn't get a second resolution you agree that they should with americans on military action? >> then there was the legal question because peter had drawn my attention to that so there were all sorts of factors in play there. there was the political question as to whether we get the support for it. but my own view i was under absolutely no doubt about this was that if he backed away, when he was playing around with the inspectors in precisely the way he had done before, then you were going to send a very, very bad signal out to the world. >> so your position at the time,

at the end of january, was that politically, legally, for a variety of reasons you would like a second resolution. you thought was very important to work for it, but if you didn't get it, you were prepared with what the americans to take military action, supposing the legal and political issues -- >> correct. my view was that if in the in the you could not get a second resolution, even in circumstances where there was plainly a breach of resolution 1441, and there was, at some point we can go through the blacks' reports -- >> we will. >> from blix himself there was a full compliance. >> we will come to that in a moment. >> it's also been reported and i don't think this is a big secret that you were informed at the start -- that the proposed start date for the military action at that time was march 10th.

is that your recollection? >> around that time, yes. ischemic it slipped by just over a week. is it also fair to say that the president was adamant this military planning set the tone for the diplomatic strategy rather then the other way around? >> this was a debate that continued frankly, and you see what i try to do as you know before the military action is i have one last attempt to get a consensus in the security council effectively with blix to lead on a series of tests that saddam had to comply with. you see, the problem was this. there was no doubt he was in breach because he wasn't complying fully unconditionally and immediately. on the other hand, people were saying give the inspectors more time, which is perfectly, you

know, understandable. and i was thinking how do we actually get to the point where you force people to understand and in a sense saddam to decide whether he is going to comply or not. >> we are getting a bit forward though you raise issues that are obviously important. and i think it is fair to say that at that time the american view was the military timetable with a little bit of give had to be ensured to. my weight is simply this, this is the question, is from the end of january, you had perhaps six weeks may be more, maybe seven. how did you think you could get a resolution through in such a short period of time and wasn't the danger of the situation in a

sense not only were you giving saddam an ultimatum but also giving yourself an ultimatum as well. >> it wasn't that i was getting myself an ultimatum because opposition had been clear we have resolved this through the u.n. and if we couldn't results through the u.n. inspectors we have to resolve it by removing saddam. what actually happened was we had time enough to do. the problem was very simple. in the end after 1441, in a sense france and germany and russia moved to a different position and formed their own poll that was of power and essentially said to america we are not going to be with you on this. >> we will come to that in a moment to be on the military timetable, we have heard from a number of witnesses the american concern that it was unrealistic to keep the troops once mobilized and deployed out in

the gulf for a long period of times of the military planning was one way or another bearing down hard on the diplomatic process. >> that is correct and in this sense. if it is fair to say the only reason saddam was having anything much to the inspectors at all in getting more cooperation was because he had 250,000 troops with the machinery sitting on his doorstep. so, you are always in a position where you have got to be very careful then, and i think the -- many of the witnesses have said this to your inquiry. not just the americans, i think our own military were concerned, if you had months with the troops donner as inspections went on but nothing was being resolved i think that would have been difficult to have done so

in that sense your right as always if you come to a point of decision. the only thing i would say to you is and i think this is absolutely vital and understanding again the lines at the time had saddam after 1441 and a sense donner colonel khadafy and said right i accepted this, we are going to full and unconditional appliance, here's the declaration it covers everything we have, come in and interview our scientists, take them out of the country and interview if you wish we are going to reposition ourselves, had he done that we would have been in a different situation. he didn't. >> he had difficulty in that because if he had done that he would have said we have no weapons of mass destruction because in fact that turns out to have been the case but he wouldn't have been believed. indeed when the head of iaea said that the end there is no

evidence of a nuclear program vice president cheney said your wrong. there's the problem here given the hypophysis and mindset as you described it actually would have been difficult given all his back rent because some who seem to have been convincing on this score. >> understanding the point you're making i don't believe it is correct. if you look at the iraq survey group report now and this report -- we will get to the detail of a bit later but this report is very, very important indeed because what is effectively is what blix could have produced saddam cooperated with him. and what the report shows is the extent to which saddam retained his nuclear and chemical warfare intent and intellectual know-how. now, what saddam could have done

perfectly easily is provide the proper documentation and he could have cooperated fully and interviews -- >> if you look at the report one of the problems of the iraqi said gotten themselves into is when they dismantled a lot of this they had not maintained proper documentation so you were almost in the audit trail problem here indeed jack straw freest this when he was talking about what was there and this goes back to the document. it would have been quite hard in the circumstances and believe of the time for a convincing case to be made. i don't want to be later this point. >> it's a very important point. if you look at the blix reports and we can come to the detail of that and the iraq survey group he was deliberately concealing documentation and what is more he was deliberately not allowing people to be interviewed

properly. indeed in december, 2002, this is after resolution 1441 we received information and disinformation remains valid that he called together his people and said anybody who agreed to interview outside of iraq was to be treated as a spy. the reason for this simple from the iraq survey group report. he retained full intent to start his program and therefore it was very important for him about the interviews did not take place because the interviews were senior regime members precisely what it would have indicated the concealment and the intent. islamic this indicates perhaps a problem going back to the dossier. if there was a continued content to have a weapon of mass destruction program that might have -- i would undoubtedly have had a degree of credibility with

the problem was the specificity was that it was there to have been reconstituted and the weapons were there. >> as i say and sir laurence you are right this is the crux of eight. >> i do want to get to dr. blix because it is a problem and we discussed this a lot with lord goldsmith as well, that it's true the issue of material breach was a around the question of desçóçó >> it'sñrñrñi really vey important to get this right. it is absolutely clear that he was concealing material he should have delivered up to the un, that he was taking action on the facilities that were specifically in breach of the united nations resolution. >> i must disagree.

there were specific elements in saddam's behavior. this is as much about the diplomacy and what is going on in iraq then what is going on in iraq. to get the second resolution, you needed the evidence that saddam had not taken the final opportunity. where was this going to come from? who is going to provide the statement? >> the reports were obviously the key documents here, and you will see from his reports -- i think of the 19th of december, and he was has one on the night of january and the 27th of january -- the ninth of january and 27th of january.

>> it is important he is providing his reports. whatñiñrñr is thiaóçó tragedy ad this time of the white house meeting at the end ofñi januaryd dependent on his assertions of material breach? being rather firm in his assertions of material breach as he had appeared to be in terms of talking about noncooperation of material breach of his discussion was january the 27th report. so were you sort of hoping and expecting that he would reinforce your view by continuing to take the position? >> the whole point was his view was iraq was complying somewhat but not unconditionally, and as time went on i became increasingly alarmed that we were back into a game playing situation. with saddam i think we were.

it's very clear from what we know now he and had no intention of his people cooperating with the inspectors. >> but just worth noting in terms of what the inspectors could do, she was able to report that they were dealing with the missile which actually if you go back to the intelligence was the area where a step change in iraqi capabilities had correctly been reported by british intelligence and put in the dossier and a that was actually dealt with by the inspectors in march so it wasn't that this was necessarily a wholly passive role they were playing. >> that's true and obviously as the prospect of the military action and troop buildup was there he started to give more cooperation but i would draw your attention to something i think as i say is a fundamental importance and that is

resolution 1441 decided in operational five not just that he had to give unrestricted access to the sites and so on but is specifically focused on the issue to do with interviews and dave -- >> this was always a controversy wish you and dr. blix was always very reluctant because the risks they knew that they would be in and he was never himself that enthusiastic about that. >> exactly mr. lawrence but let me tell you this was an important point. i used to have these comments, conversations rapport with blix where he would say to me i agree we should interview these people but you don't understand they may be killed or their relatives may be killed and i would say to him what does this tell about the nature of the person we are

dealing with and the nature of his compliance? yes he was, he kept saying i feel deeply personally responsible if i ask for the study conducted outside of iraq because i believe these people may be killed. that to me -- >> it was an illustration of the problems dealing with saddam hussein. on the 14th of february when dr. blix gave a presentation to the report which wasn't long after colin powell's ury sycophant speech of the fifth of february were you disappointed by the line he was taking which seemed to roll back from the position you are taking on january? >> it was until i was disappointed, i was getting confused as to what he was trying to tell because what he kept doing is saying yes there

is a bit of cooperation here but then there's not cooperation their and was particularly struck me about the 14th of february blix report and this then had a huge significance and what i tried in to construct as a final way of avoiding the war is on page 26 of his briefing she deals with his issue of interviews and he says that the iraqi side because they are starting to move on interviews because he's beginning to press on it they have made a commitment they would allow it but then when he actually comes to the introduce themselves people are very reluctant to do it. >> often an inherent problem with this regime for the reasons you've given -- and correct we knew that before hand. >> but it's precisely the reason there for white even if blix had continued the fact is he would never have gotten the truth out of saddam and the leading people in the regime.

the people who did get the truth out for the iraq survey group and what they found was saddam retained the intent. >> i think we've got the idea that the intent was there. >> and the know-how. >> and this is not an issue of disagreement. >> i'm sorry mr. blair did you want to make more of that, in fairness to u.s. think we've taken the point if not in contention. >> it's just sometimes very briefly i think what's important is not to ask the march, 2003 question, but to ask the 2010 question supposing we had backed off this military action, supposing we have left saddam and his sons were going to follow him in charge of iraq, people who use chemical weapons, cause the death of over a million people, what we now know is he reading it absolutely the intent and intellectual know-how restart a nuclear and chemical weapons program when the inspectors were out and the

sanctions changed which they were going to be. now i think it is at least arguable he was a threat and had we taken that decision to leave him there with the intent with a price not of $25 but $100 a barrel he would have had the intent and the financial means and we would have lost our nerve. >> thank you. >> you have a phone call with dr. blix on the 25th of february and he has written about this again this morning. we've obviously seen the record. one of the things people were commenting on by this time was the smoking gun as it is being called that had been searched for would not be found. and number of sites have been suggested and nothing had been

turned up and i'm quoting what he said. he said it will be paradoxical and absurd it to under 50,000 men were to invade iraq and find very little. what was your response to that? >> mikey response to that was to say what you have to tell is whether he is complying with the resolution. is he getting immediate compliance and full compliance or not and his answer to that was know what you never know it may be that if we are given more time he will. it was rising out of that conversation that i worked with him to try to get a fresh u.n. security council resolution. i kept working on that until the last moment. >> as we know, but four days later in fact of the 24th

february, you tabled a draft resolution which stated the field to take the last opportunity to cooperate. but that at that point blix was not saying to the united nations to the security council that compared to the position of richard butler in december, 1998 who was absolutely clear he was not getting the cooperation that he sought from saddam hussein. the last report that dr. blix had given had been he was getting in principle cooperation on the process. that is what he was saying. and you may disagree and think that it is not necessarily proper interpretation of the evidence you could see but that is what he said. so in this since you have now to make the judgment to the

security council on material breach. at that time without the support of a statement by dr. blix, explicit support. >> with their use of the action was justified or not, his reports were clear that the compliance was not immediately and the cooperation plainly wasn't and indeed on his seventh of march, where he sexually moving further along the road he says page 31 it is obvious while the numerous initiatives which are now taken by the iraqi side with a view to resolving longstanding open issues can be seen as active or even productive. these initiatives three to four months into the resolution cannot be said to constitute immediate cooperation nor do

they necessarily cover all areas of relevance they are nonetheless welcome so what i felt was we've got to a situation where he was very much on the one hand on the other and here was the decision we had to take at this point. and i think in light of the group found i actually think this judgment was right which is why personally i don't believe if blix had another six months it would have come out any differently. we have to reaffirm this judgment. if you have a regime that he believes is a threat you may choose sanctions that have to be sustainable you may change than by military force with all the problems there is. the simplest way of change is the path on the regime. we have to decide the role of this he was doing with blix

really indicate to us, it was definitely in material breach of the u.n. resolution but did indicate this was someone who had a change of heart? >> i think that the issue that was now developing in the security council was that dr. blix did indeed seem to think more weeks and months would be helpful and because nothing had been found so far in the inspections process other than the missiles which were being dealt with that confirmed the intelligence picture that had been presented of the previous months that people did feel there was a need for more time. it wasn't an unreasonable request. so was there a risk that by putting down the second resolution at this point that it

appeared as if you were trying to curtail this process because of the demands of the military planning? >> it was more readily sir laurence the other way around. what we were trying to do is say how do you result would on any basis is somewhat in distinct picture being painted by blix because it's clear they are not cooperating fully but they are giving a lot of cooperation and i come back to the fact that on the cooperation given was this military force sitting on saddam's doorstep. we tried to do is find a way and that is why i did this with blix himself. we sat down while we had a conversation i think actually we had a long conversation on the phone and i remember jack was very much involved in this and jeremy greenstock was involved we tried to construct these tests and the most important one to me was this ability to get the scientists out of the

country. >> the issue and indeed this is a jury serious efforts but you didn't have the time because if you were going to do that maybe it would have taken until april committee until may, but the sense within the security council was that this was indeed a wave of coicou forward but that the view of the united states is that you couldn't have much more time to read jonathan powell told us you asked for more time if and when on defendant. >> the reason for constructing the resolution was to try to get his into the situation of having more time the problem was we should go to the resolution together and i was having discussions late into the might every evening the chileans and mexicans and i was speaking to

the french, it was really everybody. we were trying desperately to get this last redoubt and there were things we talked about at the time i would go into the details of the but there were a group of arab countries that hã

were the absolute on getting something that i just want, because the time now is pressing and i think that we have done quite a lot on this. let me just some of where it seems to me that we are as february is turning into march. first jeremy greenstock told us to this time he never felt he was close to having positive votes in the back. we had some at one point and some at another but we never lined them all up together. we should have put the pressure on the french. despite the quality of intelligence past there hasn't been a smoking gun. there hasn't been a real kind of chemical or biological stocks.

perhaps for reasons that are nothing to do with whether it is there or not that it hasn't been found. the inspectors were not saying that they couldn't do their job. they were and he was saying his job was almost done and there was no nuclear program. so the view was moving away on this issue in the security council. was this not a good time to take stock and question whether or not more time would have been helpful and just to quoed the evidence we've had from jeremy greenstock both of whom have come to this conclusion it would have been good to have more time. >> that is why we tried to construct this arrangement to get some more time.

i will need to point however. first of all we would have gotten the nine votes and were it not for the fact that those members in the middle group, they were called the undecided six at a certain point, they were getting such a clear demand message from france and russia they were not going to accept any new resolution as an authority for action. that is one disintegrated that possibly. the second thing is though even if we have gotten more time blix would never have been able to conduct the interviews with key members of the regime and the would be honest with -- sprick but if he had been given the chance and failed again, and wouldn't you then have had more of a chance of having the security council behind you which had been one of your objectives going back to 2002?

>> i'm not really sure about that, sir lawrence. we have been for months with saddam and you can take different views of the blix reports and blix takes a certain view now i have to say in my conversations than it was a little different you have to make a judgment is this person really clobbered with the international community or not? and as we now coincidentally he wasn't and i do emphasize the fact that she come and there's also evidence in the iraq survey group which is quite important about what iraqi scientists were being told by the vice president of iraqi gathered them all together as the inspectors went in and as you know the inspectors was supposed to get

all the information, any material they had and what he was saying to them is if you have any materials in your possession you better not half. >> i understand may be your right this is indeed what happened to read the question is whether or not it would be possible to create the consensus. it would have been so much help behind you in the united nations. my final question, did you ask president bush for more time and did he say no the military action has got to go ahead on the 19th of march? >> no, but he actually did much to the consternation of his system, he said okay if you can get this new resolution down with the tests that i can -- because deconstructed them with blix i got here you are constructing these tests with the u.n. inspectors, so i felt i would give them a certain persuasive quality of the ausley

with the other members of the security council. and what president bush actually said to me is if you can get that, do it. but, you know, you've got to understand from the american perspective they've gone down the 1441 route. he obviously was not cooperating. we have been for the eighth of september declaration and we then went through the january report, february report and had their forces donner taking action in the difficult situation said he did to be fair say if you can put it together put it together. >> in retrospect i cannot agree with this judgment that more time is not going to solve this. >> it is clearly time to break for lunch. can i just say i would like to thank everyone in the room who sat through this morning and those who were not able to be here in this room this

afternoon, thank you for your very attentive well if i may say so mannered response to the >> here today, this morning, and now this afternoon, the selected through a free public ballot overseen by an independent

arbit arbiter. and e i remind everyone of the behavior expected to be observed. welcome back, mr. blair. to the benefit of those who were not able to be in the room this morning, can i just repeat two things that were said this morning at the start of the proceedings. we recognize that witnesses are getting evidence based on their events, and we cross check with the papers we have access. and i have reminded each witness he will later be asked to sign a transcript to ensure that evidence is true, fair and accurate. >> i would like to pick up a couple of points for follow-on

from where you left it before lunch. just to finish off the diplomatic and political decisions that you faced in the days before you had to take the decision that we should start with the reaction. and there's only two parts i think i want to ask about now. the first one concerns the position of the french government, which you did refer to before lunch. in your final speech before the conflict for the house of commons on the 18th of march, you told the commons that -- and i'll quote here, france said it would veto a second resolution, whatever the circumstance is. those on the security council opposed to us will not count against any resolution that authorizes force in the event of non-compliance. had the french been on to us

after president chirac's interview of the 10th of march and the days after that and before you made that statement. had they indeed told number ten through diplomatic channels that we were misinterpreting president chirac's words by misinterpreting the context of his statement, whatever the circumstances. had they told us that in the view of the french government, chirac had not been saying that france would vote no against any resoluti resolution, he was referring to this resolution at this time. i believe i spoke to president chirac and myself. i think it was on the 14th of march. and this is actually, you know, after that time. the french position was very, very clear. it wasn't that they vetoed any resolution, it was they vetoed a

resolution that authorized force. and the point was this, that if we were going to come back to the united nations and get another resolution, it had to be a resolution that said something stronger and tougher than 1441. and therefore, the idea was to say because we'd been through 1441, saddam was not in compliance, if we come back for another resolution, then this has got to authorize action. >> so you didn't feel there was any possibility that if we'd pursued inspections for longer period to the point where the french and perhaps reporting the process was exhausted that at that stage the french would have been prepared to vote for a resolution authorizing military action? >> i really -- my judgment having spoken to jacque chirac, and we had perfectly good lines open throughout this. and i was very anxious to make

sure for the aftermath situation that we came back together again in the u.n. security council. so i wasn't, you know, trying to be in a position where it fell out, but it was very, very clear to me. the french, the germans, and the russians had decided they weren't going to be in favor of this. and there was a straightforward division, frankly. and i don't think it would have mattered how much time we'd taken. they weren't going to agree that force should be used. >> in any circumstances at any time on this? >> unless there'd been something dramatic that the inspectors might have uncovered. that might have made a difference to them. but the mere fact that he was in breach of 1441, despite this being his final opportunity, my judgment i have to say -- and i think this is pretty clear is that there was by then a political divide on this of a

pretty fundamental nature. >> as we hadn't got nine positive votes in the bag, a french vote against wouldn't have been a veto. is there any substance in the charge that by making so much of the french veto we were actually using it as an excuse to where withdrawal the resolution which wasn't going to succeed any way so we could meet the american timetable and go into action? >> no, the actual situation. because i had many conversations with other leaders at the time. and most of those were with president lagos of chile. and he was in a tough situation as we all were at that time. and what president lagos was effectively saying to me was, look, if you can get to a stage where you can loosen the french opposition, then it's a lot easier for us to come along with you. so it was very bound up with as it were, what was then becoming

in the permanent five, a disagreement. uk and america on one side, french and russia on the other. >> you hadn't reached a point in the week or so before the resolution was withdrawn where you'd effectively had to give up your hopes of getting president lagos, maybe your hopes that president bush could persuade the mexicans to decide you have to plan an end game in which opposition was presented in the best way it could be? >> well, i think with more that, i thought there was -- it was worth having one last ditch chance to see if you could bring people back together on the same page. in the sense, what president bush had to do was agree to table a fresh resolution. what the french had to agree was you couldn't have another resolution and another breach and no action. so my idea was to find the circumstances of breach. that was the test we applied with.

get the americans to agree to the resolution, get the french to agree that you couldn't just go back to the same words of 1441 again, you had to take it a stage further. that was the idea i had. i think it might have been possible to bring everyone back together again. it wasn't possible to do that. i was also very conscious by that time, as well, of the need f#@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @r

months, indeed for year to try to create a supportive environment. and we've discussed elements of that already. but you haven't actually got clear and strong international consensus for this action, public opinion here in the u.k. was divided. no really major progress had been made on the middle east peace plan which you discussed earlier. we hadn't gotten the second resolution. and you were also by this stage starting to hear warnings from people. i think tim cross who came to see you. but the post conflict preparations being made by the americans didn't look at all good. at this point, you must, i suppose had some pause for thought. did president bush at this point when you hadn't really satisfied

the pre-conditions he wanted to achieve, offered to go it alone and offered you a way out? >> i think the americans would've done that. i think president bush actually one point shortly before the debate said look, it's too difficult for britain. we understand. but i took the view very strongly then and do that it was right for us to be with america since we believed in this too. and it is true that it was very divisive. but it was divisive in the sense that there were two groups. there was also a very strong group in the international community, in parliament. i would say even in the cabinet who also thought it was the right thing to do. and so, for example, in the european union at the time, i think 13 out of the 25 members were with america. japan, south korea were with america. major allies lining up with america. >> clearly the war support, i

suppose this was a long way short of what you'd hoped to have had. >> i would have hoped to have had a united nations situation in which everyone was on the same page and agreed. sometimes that doesn't happen. >> in kosovo, one didn't have because the russians threatened to veto, but you had much stronger support, the first gulf war, afghanistan, and so on. this was a much more difficult situation for you? >> really tough situation, yes. and in the end, what influenced me was that my judgment ultimately was that saddam was going to remain a threat. and in this change in the perception of risk after september the 11th, we were able to react, our alliance with america was important. and to put this very clearly, we'd been down a u.n. path i

genuinely hoped would work. i hoped that 1441 would avoid conflict. >> you said this morning you weren't terribly confident it would work, you hoped it would work. >> i did hope it would work. i wasn't confident about saddam and for personally good reasons. he'd been someone who had been defying the u.n. for ten years and hadn't changed his intent. so i could see a situation in which you might be faced with this tough choice, but i was doing absolutely everything i could to try and avoid trying to do it. >> the other day referred to a plan b that he'd floated with you. i think i don't remember the exact words, but implying he say a case for it, which would've involved only partial involvement by us in the military action for not sending the ground troops in as i understand it. what was your view of his advice? >> well, that was a possibility.

as i think we discussed this morning. in fact, our own military in a sense to their great credit were favor if we were to be part of this to be whole hearted. >> well, they're out there ready to go and troops in that situation don't want to have to come back. >> this is even back in october. i think if you look at the record back in october of 2002, the military was saying their preferences for the three options. >> i'm now thinking of the last week before the accident -- >> i thought you were meaning to suggest it was because the troops were down there. i think to be fair and i think my boys would say this to you, they wanted to be a whole hearted part of this. and i thought was right, as well, as i discussed. it would have been a very big thing for us to kept after the aftermath, as well. and of course, it was in the aftermath that some of the most difficult things happened. and the british forces performed absolutely magnificently during the invasion and afterwards. >> some argued the opposite. some of our earlier witnesses who have said that by going in

with the large force, we actually hope that we could then take the fighting and the combat troops out to a fairly early stage in the hope that other people would come in and take up the aftermath. now, reversing that, if we'd not sent the force in at this stage for this variety of reasons, we could then still have said in the very respectable way that we're ready to come in and do the sort of peace-building, nation-building stuff we've got experience in in the aftermath. so it wasn't keeping us out of the aftermath by not going in at this stage. >> i'm sorry, i meant precisely the opposite. exactly what you're saying. in other words, we would have been part of the aftermath. and actually as it turned out, the reasons that we didn't foresee as it turned out, it was the aftermath that was the most difficult and toughest part of this. and what i'm saying is to have kept out of the aftermath as well as the initial action, i think would have been very hard for britain. but having said all of that. look, again, this is a judgment.

you could have decided to do option one or two. in the end, we decided to do option three. and i think that was -- i would say the consensus view between political and military at the time and just to say this too. one of the things i've done in every single piece of military action. i advocated as prime minister is the first thing in a sense i do is get a sense from our armed forces as to whether they're committed to doing it. and they are, that's the type of people they are and they're fantastic. but it was a very much a conversation we had back in, i think beginning actually in july time and building up to october. and by the time we game to march. it's true, we could've pulled back at that stage, but i believe that would have been wrong. and i think it would have not indicated the strength of support that i felt was right for us to exhibit.

>> i'd like to change the subject now, if i may. if my colleagues have got nothing further they want to raise on this point. this morning i registered that we would want to deal with all the legal issues as it were in one chapter. i think that's easier. i hope it's easier for you, i think it's easier for us. in the course of this week alone, we've had some ten hours of evidence on this from the attorney general from three senior civil service legal advisers who were involved in the question. for that reason, we don't propose to try to go through the issues point by point again, which would take probably another ten hours. but we really would like now to focus on the questions that most directly concerned you as prime minister. and the committee has suggested that the easiest way of

attacking this extremely complex subject would be if i tried to summarize first what we as a committee have heard and read on this subject. and if you'll forgive me, allow you to rest your voice for a minute. this will take me a few minutes, i think ultimately will also save us some time. so if you're content, i will try to wrap up what we have absorbed on this subject in a number of points. >> just to interject and then coming to specific questions based on that. is that satisfactory to you? >> yeah. and so i'll go through the summary if you're not content with any points in it, please tell me, and then i've got one or two questions i'd like to ask arising from that. firstly, there wasn't a legal basis as lord goldsmith repeated to us the day before yesterday for regime change as an objective in itself.

secondly, lawyers in the u.s. administration favored what was called the revival argument. and that meant that the authorization for the use of force during the first gulf war embodied in resolution 687 was capable of being revived as it had been revived in 1993 and 1998. however, the uk's lawyers did not consider that this argument was applicable without a fresh determination by the security council. and they felt that not only because of the passage of time since resolutions 678 and 687, but also because in 1993 and

1998, the security council had formed the view that there had been a sufficiently serious violation of the cease-fire conditions. and also because the force that'd been used then had been limited to ensuring iraqi compliance with the cease-fire conditions. and even in 1998, the revival argument had been controversial and not very widely supported. so the british argument was that you needed a fresh determination of the security council. if we turn then to the precedent of kosovo, over kosovo, russia had threatened to veto a proposed security council resolution. and our lawyers believe that this precedent did not apply to these circumstances in iraq because in kosovo we had had an alternative legal basis to rely on, which was intervention to

avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe. so what that led to was consistent, and i think united advice by the fco's legal advisers. and also in so far as it was at this stage sought by the attorney general up to november of 2002 that a fresh u.n. authorization under chapter 7 would be required for the military action contemplated against iraq, contemplated at that stage as a contingency to be lawful. such an authorization in their view would provide the only grounds on which in these circumstances force could be used. and so the uk and the usa went to the united nations and

obtained security council resolution 1441, passed unanimously. however, in the words of lord goldsmith, that resolution wasn't crystal clear, and i think you yourself this morning referred to the fact that there were arguments. it didn't resolve the argument, i think was the way you put it. and the ambiguous wording of that resolution immediately gave rise to different positions by different security council members on whether or not it of itself had provided authorization without a further determination by the security council for the use of force. so up until early february of 2003, the attorney general, again as lord goldsmith told us in his evidence was telling you that he remained of the view that resolution 1441 did not

authorize the use of force without a further determination by the security council. that it was his position that a council discussion, the word discussion was used in the resolution, would not be sufficient and that a further decision by the council was required. i think perhaps as i'm about half way through the summary. and i reached the point before lord goldsmith gives you his formal advice. it might be sensible if i paused at halftime and ask if up until now you think i've got it right in understanding. >> yes, that summary. >> if you're content, then i'll continue. and i have to do as well with the second half. because i'm not the lawyer and you are. on the second of march -- on the 7th of march, lord goldsmith submitted his formal advice to you. a document which is now in the

public domain. and in that, he continued to argue that "the sa&ek4@@@@@@@@ r the court, i would be confident that the court would agree with this view."

show that point, lord goldsmith had to a degree parted company with the legal advisers in the foreign and commonwealth office who have also given evidence to us. they were continuing to argue a that the invasion could only be lawful if the security council determined that a further material breach had been committed by iraq. i emphasize further because 1441 established that iraq was already in breach, but then the argument was about the so-called fire break and if you had to have a further material breach. lord goldsmith tells us that when it became clear we were not likely to get a second resolution, a further resolution, he was asked to give what he described as a yes or no decision, especially because

clarity was required by the armed forces, cds had put this to them. and by public servants, he had received an intervention from a senior treasury lawyer. giving that advice on the 7th of march, by the 13th of march he had crucially decided -- and this is from a minute recording a discussion between himself and his senior adviser david bromel who has also given evidence to us and also on the public he decided that "on balance, the better view was that the masp%ç-4-no carrierringconnect 0

this view now taken by the ect 0 attorney general still required a determination that iraq was "in further material breach of its obligations." the legal advisers in the fco considered that only the u.n. security council could make that determination. but the attorney took the view that individual member states could make this determination. and he asked you to provide your assurance that you had so concluded. you had concluded that iraq was in further material breach. and on the 15th of march, which is what five days before the

action began, you officially gave the unequivocal view that iraq is in further material breach of its obligations. so it was on that basis that the attorney was able to give the green light for military action to you, to the armed forces, to the civil service, to the cabinet and parliament. but it remained the case as sir michael wood made clear in his evidence that while the attorney general's constitutional authority was, of course, accepted by the government's civil service advisers on international law headed by sir michael's words or has decided to resign at this point from government service. they accepted his authority, but they did not endorse the position in law which he had taken. and it remains to this day sir michael's position. he said this in his witness statement that "the use of force

against iraq in march 2003 was country to international law." now, my first question is, have i given a fair summary of the legal background? >> yes, i think that is a fair summary of the legal background. i would say, however, just one point, which is that what was so important to me about revolution 1441 was not it declared saddam in breach, gave him a final opportunity, but it said also in '04 that a failure to comply unconditionally and immediately and fully with the inspectors, was a further material breach. that was important for us to secure in that resolution and we did secure it. and what we kept out of 1441 was

an attempt to ensure we had to go back for another decision. >> i went through that in considerable detail as you probably saw with the attorney general to make sure we clearly understood the different positions and the weight that was being given to evidence received through private conversations and what was said on the public record. so if you will allow me not to go over all that ground again. if you're content with the way that we discussed it with the attorney general. and i would really move on to my next question, which is that going back to the first half of 2002, which we discussed right at the beginning of today, the period when your strategy was evolving away from containment for the reasons you explained and towards the american position. and therefore, you were beginning to discuss the possibility or the contingency of having to use force.

in that period of the first half of 2002 when you were having these discussions, did you seek legal advice from the attorney or indeed from anyone else? >> we got a paper on the 8th of march paper that set out the legal position. and that set it out in the terms that you have just summarized. i was obviously not just very interested for obvious reasons, but interested in it for this reason, as well, that we had taken in 1998. and we'd taken action on the basis of the revival of resolution 678. so it was very important to me because we'd already taken military action and as you rightly point out, military action had been taken in 1993, as well. but we have that before us. and one of the things that was most important in us going down the u.n. route was precisely the legal advice that we got. >> so you wanted at that early stage to know the legal

parameters. do you remember where that advice came from? was it from the foreign office legal advisers? >> i don't. but i may be able to. >> if i put it another way, i think from our discussion with the attorney general, it didn't come from him. if i'm not misremembering his evidence, i don't think at that stage he'd been consulted. >> came from the foreign office, actually. >> it came from the foreign office. could you say why given -- this is pretty serious territory you're beginning to get on to. you didn't at that stage think it necessary to consult the state's attorney general? >> i mean, we were in my view a long way at that point from taking a decision. and have we come close to taking a position of course. we would've needed to take the position of the attorney generals and indeed we did. at that stage, we had the advice of the foreign office and

actually the foreign office advice was pretty much in line with goldsmith later advised me. >> it was 100% in line with both of them. from that point, building the attorney general into the process of forming policy, having him at meetings like the meeting you discussed wasn't something you felt a need to do? >> not at that stage. because we were -- as i say at a very preliminary point. but what i took from the advice that we were given was that we needed a fresh resolution. >> i do point out that because this was at a later stage, i became concerned as a to what the legal problem was. because, of course, we got a further resolution. >> if i can just stick a little bit -- a couple of minutes with the attorney general's role in this because his evidence is very fresh in our minds. in previous governments, it was quite frequently the practice for attorneys general to attend

cabinet and indeed in some wall cabinets, you didn't have a wall cabinet before the conflict began here, but you had groups of advisers who met. ministers and advisers. attorney generals, sometimes in the past quite frequently in the past would have been there. now, lord goldsmith told us he had only attended cabinet -- began to discuss iraq. although as you said this morning, the cabinet discussed iraq over 20 times. and it was clear from his evidence, i think, that he was rarely included in the other discussions he were having around the subject and he had relatively few face to face meetings with you in 2002 and the early part of 2003, particularly in 2002 to discuss the subject, which i think raised a question in our minds as to why you haven't thought it right to include him more closely. >> well, he was very closely

involved in this. in the sense that he, himself, and on his own initiative -- and at the end of july 2002, wrote to me about his legal advice. and it's correct, and i think this is in accordance with tradition. until we got to the point where we were going to take the decisi decision, but back then, we were off military action in 2002. now if we'd gotten close to the point, of course, peter would have been very closely involved and actually began to be involved some, i think, it's right to say eight months before the military action began. >> you actually got to the po t point, right close to the point with him only having been to the cabinet twice, the second time being on the eve of conflicts. >> the issue's not how many times he comes to the cabinet, the issue's whether he's giving

his advice to the prime minister and to the ministers and peter was. and just to say this about peter goldsmith. he's a lawyer's lawyer, somebody who actually is a lawyer, is in the very top rank of the legal profession. and peter made it quite clear from a very early stage of this that if he felt he had advice, he would give it. but he was going to give it and he did give it. >> well, indeed, he told us he volunteered after your meeting of the 23rd of july when you were about to go off to see president bush, and he volunteered advice to you in the minutes of the 30th of july. the text of which is not in the public domain. but he commented to us that this advice he felt had not been particularly welcome. we wondered why it wasn't particularly welcome to get advice. >> it was not that it wasn't

particularly welcome. i was dealing with what already was a difficult situation. and now i became aware, we had to take a whole new dimension. once we got into discussions with the americans, i was well aware of the fact from really from much that if we wanted to be legally secure on this, we had to go down the u.n. route. and that was one major part why we decided to do this. >> we got the point, you didn't need to be constantly reminded of it. >> no, but having said that, it actually was then very helpful for him to do this. because he focussed our mind quite rightly on the need to get the right resolution in 1441. >> so you just got the wrong vibes from the reaction at number ten? >> well, i don't know. but i know peter very well and he's someone i have a great respect for. and i'm sure --

>> he made this remark, so it's natural, indeed -- >> i think to be frank and fair to him, he was deciding before i go to president bush, and i think he worried about statements that had been made by various ministers. >> later on he was, yes. >> he wanted to make it absolutely clear. >> yes. >> that it wasn't really -- i think his point was it's not really going down the u.n. route, it's getting the right resolution that will be important. >> let's turn to that resolution. just after it was adopted, adopted on the 8th of november, resolution 1441. and on the 11th of november, he talked to your chief of staff, jonathan powell, he was a bit concerned that he was hearing secondhand views of his own opinions and he wanted, i think, to get that straight. and he made clear to jonathan powell that he was not optimistic that resolution 1441 would provide a sound legal basis for the use of force if

iraq were found in breach at a future stage but without a second res lougs. and he suggested that it was desirable for him to provide advice at that point.@@@@@@@ ha) now, by then we're into a period in which the armed forces had

actually been instructed to prepare for military action, and in which you were moving along the track towards an intended second security council resolution. though, that wasn't tabled until late february, i think about the 24th for memory. don't you think that it would have been useful as he obviously felt if he would've the formal advice of the attorney general ahead of these now increasingly important developments? >> no, i think what was important for him to do was to explain to us what his concerns were. and look, all the way through this, there was a -- as i know myself, lawyers take different views of issues. and an issue such as this, they were bound to take very different views. peter was quite rightly saying to us these are my concerns, this is why i don't think 1441 in itself is enough.

we had begun military preparations even before we got the second -- the first resolution, the 1441 resolution. we had to do that, otherwise we'd never been in the position to take military action. let me make it absolutely clear. if peter in the end said this cannot be justified lawfully, we would have been unable to take action. >> but if you'd known that he was going to say that, it would have been helpful to have known that as soon as possible because it could have prevented you from deploying that large force since the region and having to bring it back. that's why i ask, wouldn't it have been helpful to have known your options? >> well, we did know our options. what we didn't get formal in the sense legal advice at that point, but peter had meat ade i clear what his view was. the whole of the legal interpretation really resolved around a bit like construction point for lawyers. what was in the mind of the people who passed the

resolution. and as you rightly said earlier, the resolution in one sense was unclear. and on the other hand, as to what people intended. on the other hand, i certainly felt where it was absolutely clear was that there had to be immediate, full, and unconditional compliance. and any lack of that compliance was a further material breach. in my view, there had to be at least a strong prime case if you could show material breach. that there were arguments. since otherwise, you couldn't have just in respect to -- >> this stage before the middle of february, he's not offering you options nor legal advice. they are saying we have to have a further determination by the security council. later on, it turned out that he was able to find an alternative option. in planning the policy, my point

is wouldn't it have been much easier for you to have known at this early stage that there was an alternative option that didn't involve a security council resolution. you might have decided not to make the huge effort you did then make to get a security council resolution because by making that effort and then not getting it, it could be argued that you had then actually weakened the argument that you subsequently or the position that you subsequently took on the revival argument? wouldn't it have been helpful to have known that earlier? >> well, we did know because peter made it clear, the best thing to do was to get a resolution. the issue was really this -- he was saying it's the only thing to do at this stage. he didn't offer the alternative until after he'd been to washington on the 13th of february. >> it was two things to be fair to him. and i think it's very important that this is seen in its proper context.

it all revolved around the interpretation of 1441. and the question was, what did the security council mean? and we were obviously arguing very strongly that the security council had agreed that he was in breach, given him a final opportunity, and any further breach was a material breach and he had to comply fully. >> but that had to be determined by the security council. >> and the issue is to whether -- because some people wanted actually the security council had to take a decisi decision -- that was excluded. we refused to allow that precisely because we did not want to be in a situation where we were forced as a matter of law to come back for another decision. and people nonetheless agreed 1441. so that was why there was at least as powerful argument on the side of one resolution only as there was against it. >> that's where you ended up in march. but until the 12th of february, you were not being told by the

attorney or the foreign office legal advisers that you had the option of not getting a further decision out of the security council. they were telling you, both of them, that their reading of that resolution, which as you rightly say was unclear. but the british reading of that resolution, unlike the american resolution was the determination had to be made by the security council. >> yes, there was a disagreement between where our position was at this stage and the american position. i think it was our suggestion actually that peter went to talk to -- >> it was then his position changed. >> yes, but not just because of the americans. what happened was, he had a discussion with jeremy -- >> after which he wrote you saying his position hadn't changed. >> but he said it had been a very useful discussion and that had obviously moved him somewhat. >> he told us there were three things that moved him. the negotiating history provided by the foreign secretary got him a further part of the way there, going to washington, talking to

the americans, got him yet another stage. that was his evolution. >> and it's fair to say -- i think it's important to say -- >> it's very important. >> it was always a very, very difficult balance to judgment. but the important thing was in the end that peter came to the view. and i think as i say, anyone who knows, he would not express this view unless he thought it and believed it. he came to the view that on balance the breach by saddam hussein of resolution 1441 was sufficient provided it was a breach of the obligation set out. >> well, he asked you to say it was sufficient. but that's at the end of the game. can i just go to the point where he's given you his formal advice of the 7th of march. but that didn't give the clear answer that the chief of defense staff and others wanted. that didn't come until the 13th of march when he has had a

period of further reflection. and what discussions did you or others under your instruction, if any, have with lord goldsmith between the 7th of march when you received his formal advice and the 13th of march when he decided that his position had evolved further? >> i can't recall any specific discussions before the 13th of march. but essentially what happened was this. he gave legal advice, he gave an opinion saying, look, there was this argument against it, there was this argument for it. i think a reasonable case can be made. and obviously we then had to have a definitive decision. and that decision is yes, it is lawful to do this or not. >> and a huge amount hung on that decision. >> of course, it did. a lot hung on that decision. and it was therefore extremely important that it was done by the attorney general and done in

a way which we were satisfied was correct and right. and that's what he did. and if i could just point out too, if you go back and read the resolution 1441, i think it's quite hard to argue as a matter of common sense beside the issues to do with the precise interpretation of some of the provisions, 1441, the whole spirit of it was we've been through ten years of saddam hussein breaching u.n. resolutions. we finally decide that he's going to be given one last chance. this is the moment when it if he takes that chance, there's no conflict, and we resolve the matter. but if he doesn't take that chance and starts messing around again as he starts to do, then that's it. >> so it's quite hard to argue what? quite hard to argue that a further -- >> the further resolution was

clearly politically preferable for us if you can get everybody back on the same page again. it's clearly preferable. but if you actually examine the circumstances of 1441, the whole point about it -- and this is the argument i use with the americans successfully to get them to go down this route. and by the way i should point out that at the end of october 2002, i remember specifically a conversation with president bush in which i said, if he complies, that's it. there's -- >> nobody mentioned that earlier. >> because people sometimes say it was all kind of cast in stone -- >> number ten says to the white house in january and february, even into martha it was essential from the british perspective because of our reading of the law to have a second resolution. >> politically -- >> not preferably, but essential. were we saying it was legally necessary for us? because that was the advice. >> what we said was that legally

it resolves that question obviously beyond any dispute. on the other hand, for the reasons that i've given, peter in the end decided that actually a case could be made out for doing this without another resolution. and as i say, did so, i think, for personal -- >> well, it must have been a considerable relief to you on the 13th of march when he told you he'd come to the better view that the revival argument worked. because at that point, he had given you subject to you making the determination the clear legal grounds you needed. >> and the reason he'd done that was really very obvious. which was the reports indicated quite clearly that saddam had not taken that final opportunity. saddam had not take than final opportunity. >> but he'd done in disagreement with the international lawyer, all of them as we understand, than in the government's employ? >> he's also i think -- i seem to remember but i may be wrong,

but if i am forgive me, but i think he also saw it -- >> we discussed that, and it didn't appear from our discussion that there were many other people outside government arguing in the same direction that lord goldsmith was arguing. >> obviously other countries were having the same issues as well and having to decide this and it wasn't -- i don't know if it's right to say the americans, irrelevant. >> clearly not. it had to impact back upon him. we heard about that the review found but whether our countries in which people were going in favor of the revival argument? >> i think all countries who took the military action believed they had a sound legal basis for doing so. all i'm pointing out is that actually when you analyze 1441, it's less surprising as a conclusion to come to than sometimes is made out today, because the fact is, 1441 was

very deliberately constructed. it had a -- it had, if you like, a certain sort of -- integrity as a resolution to it. it basically said, okay. one last chance. one last chance that i'm to prove you've had a change of heart, you're going to cooperate, and he didn't. >> we're not lawyers. we've simply listened to the views of lawyers. lord goldsmith, and the others, and looked what they told us about the balance of legal opinion on this subject. and lord goldsmith obviously was not in the a position in which he had wide support with the international legal fraternity with the government. indeed any, i think, in the uk when he made his judgment, but she a lawyer of the highest eminence and they accepted his authority, even if they didn't agree with it. so that was the final position.

>> all i'm -- sorry. please, all i'm trying to say, when you actually go back and read 1441, it's pretty obvious that you can make a decent case for this. >> well, let me not pass judgment on that. i'm asking questions, and i don't have an opinion to state on it. i just would like to ask one final question i think to wrap up this legal chapter. this is really, were you in the position ultimately where you had to give this determination, will you to go through with the action. lord goldsmith was preparing with the assistance of christopher greenwood for the possibility of legal challenge. he knew that he'd taken the decision that some others, many other, perhaps, were ar gugy with and were going to argue with and he had put something to you that was describe as a reasonable case, but nerve are the les, not one that he would have confidentially put before a court. you, then have to decide whether

you were convinced that this was a strong enough legal basis to take a very serious action of h @ @ rbh@ @ so that's what he had to do. he did it. and as i say, anybody who knows

peter knows he would not have done it unless he believed in it and thought that was the correct thing to do, and that was, for us and for our armed forces, that was sufficient. >> you weren't worry by him saying that he wouldn't expect to win in a court with this one? >> he said, not to win, simply said there's a case either bap and there always was a case either way. that's why it would have been preferable, politically and to have removed any doubt to have had the second resolution, but in the end, we got to the point in the middle of march when frankly we had to decide. we were going either to back away or we were going to go forward and i decided, and for the reasons that i've given that we should go forward. >> was case either way, bun one he described as the safest legal course that was no longer available and the other se head was, if the matter of it came before a court -- well a

reasonable case does not mean that if the matter ever came before a court i would be confident with the court, would agree with this view. but i think, and unless you have a further comment to make i have finished, i think, with all the questions i had on the legal case. i don't know if any of my colleagues have otherwise. i think we'll move on to the next subject. >> i think that brings us to the question of preparations and planning. the decision having been taken. so can i turn to baroness to stars us off y. thank you, gentlemen. this morning you said that your decision to contribute to full division was driven by your sense of what proper contribution you said should be to policy. at that stage, did you weigh off the implications of that decision? for example, the time that would be requireded to acquire and such the like?

>> yes. of course, part of the process of asking for the papers that describe the different level of military you might give is to be able to learn what it is you will be required to do, but in these situations, you know, you're very, very dependent, radio rightly, on the advice you're given from the minister of defense and from the military. >> but a fundamental underlying assumption of the strategic defense of you, which, of course, your government initiated in 1997, was that there would always be sufficient time for any operation at medium or large scale to build up equipment, and ammunition and in case of a large scale operation, such a substantial contribution of invading iraq, the necessary leave time would be six months -- lead time. necessary to allow for preparation of reserves including medics and take account of the industry's capacity to build up stocks. now, on the basis of your government's planning

assumptions, therefore, in order to prepare for the possibility, however slim, a large-scale military action in the spring of 2003, that six-month clock would have started ticking in autumn, 2002. but david mann hg toing had tol you sought to delay the position as long as possible and we heard from the lord and mr. hume about restrictions placed in december 2002. were you aware what the implications of that would be? had anybody made you aware of implications of the delay? >> absolutely. what was to be very clear, you could note do it unless the military were ready to do it. it is true, i explained this morning, for a time we were worried about the visibility of all the planning were do a certain amount of planning then you reach another level when you have to make it very visible and very clear. and we didn't want to do that for fear of triggering

assumption we were actually going to do military action, irrespective of what was going to be happening at the united nations. however, when, i think it was at the end of october 2002, it was said to me, we've really got to get on with this and we did. i know it was said confident that the uk military was fully ready by the time we took the military action. >> but, i mean, was that assurance given to you because they wanted to give you a few of the -- the approach, do you think -- >> no. the one thing about the military, in my experience, is they tell you bluntly, quite rightly, what their situation is. what they want, what they don't want and what they think about thing, and mike was very, very clear that they had the readiness. i think something like 250

different urgent operational requirements that went into this, and all of them were properly met, i think kevin told you that, and had anyone come to me at any stage and said it's not safe to do this because of the lack of proper military preparation, i would have take than very, very seriously indeed. but they didn't, and they got on with it, and they did it magnificently, as they always do. >> they did but i think you would appreciate that they only actually had about three -- it was in january, i think, there was a formal approval given. only about, i think, a couple of months. >> well i thought -- sorry, baroness. i thought jeff had come to me the end of october. there had been a lot of work going on. >> true, but no visibility preparedness, and things like the provision of essential medical ply, combats, boots, body armor, very important in a situation where there could be threat of nuclear, biological and chemical protection clothing and ammunition.

as it happened, the kit did not arrive late, and that was the case, yes, and very important. but, i mean, let me emphasize to you, on these issues with logistics and the expertise the army had on this, i needed to know from them that they could do it and they would be ready, and that's what they showed me and they were. >> so what you're saying to me, ta nobody spelled out to you the implications of not being prepared in time, given the fact the lead time needed for this kind of large-scale operation was six months? >> they were absolutely spelling out the implications, why jeff came to me and said we've now got to get this visible and get a move on with it. we had a meeting i think with the chief defense staff and others and i just want to emphasize one thing. my attitude has always been, i don't think i refused the request for money or equipment at any point in time that i was prime minister.

and my view very, very strongly is when you're asking your armed forces to go into these situations, you put everything to one side other than making sure that they have the equipment they need and they have the finance there's to back it up and as far as i'm aware, as i say, i think evidenced to you theshs got it ready and they got it ready in time. >> but the point is, formal approval did not come until january anyway, and, in fact, we do know that that was the case, the equipment was late? >> well irs didn't know -- as i say, there were issues to do with logistics that they're far better able to tell you about. all i know is that they regarded themselves as ready, and what is more, they performed as ready. i mean, they did an extraordinary job. >> can i ask another question, because if the view was that you're going through the united nations route and there was a military threat, why were you reluctant to have any visible

preparation? >> well, we changed, and we did have the visible preparation, but -- >> that came later. that's my poincht exactly. but there was always a concern, if you like the middle part of 2002, because people were constantly saying. they made up their minds, nothing's going to alter it. we're set on a military course. we were anxious to make sure people did not think it was an inevitability about this, one of the things i would emphasize to you is there really wasn't. if the u.n. routed worked successfully, however many doubts you have on the past behavior of saddam hussein, if it worked successfully, the whole thing would not have happened. we would have taken the u.n. part and made it work. >> i now want to turn to the general aftermath planning, because on the 21st of january, 2003, you were giving evidence to committee and you said, you

cannot engage in military conflict and ignore the aftermath. in other words, if we at this stage of military conflict, we also have to get a very proper worked up plan as to what happens afterwards and how the international community supports that and so on. now, several witnesses have told us that the planning for and, for the aftermath of the war was important, if not more important as planning for the war itself. >> uh-huh. >> now, what happened? because, you know, this was inadequate, and a lot of people have said it didn't quite work? >> well, first of all i think we've got to divide it into two sections here, and actually, we did a tremendous amount of pre-war planning and i think mike boyes again said to you in evidence they spent at much time as the war phase and the other phases of the operation. we had officials meeting, obviously. the ad hoc meetings, cabinet

meetings discussing these issues. the real problem was that our focus was on the issues that in the end were not the issues that caused us the difficulty. it wasn't an absence of planning. it was that we planned for certain eventualities and when we got in there, we managed to deal with those eventualities but discovered a different set of realities and then had to deal with those. so the vast bulk of the pre-war planning was focused on the humanitarian, number one. i think probably more than anything else. indeed i think it was the house of commons select committee report on the 6th of march, 2003 saying, you've got to do even more on the humanitarian side. all of the focus was on that. then there -- >> but we also have evidence and these letters have been declassify, that clair short was writing to you a pretty long time on the level of involvement that differed, and she had, and was drawing this to your

attention from a pretty early time? >> but if you analyze those letters focused especially on the hue marianitarian side. >> they do. she was complain about the preparedness and timing when 2 was done. it wasn't being paid to that. >> exactly so. that's why we trying to make sure that we doubled our focus and when we went in there i would simply say on the humanitarian side, the main thing people were warning about, we didn't end up with a humanitarian disaster, in fact, we avoided it and in many ways because of the work agencies did. the other two things she and others were warning about were the oil fields being set on fire and the use of chemical and biological weapons. so there was an immense amount of planning going on, but we planned with one assumption. that turned out to be wrong, and then we also ended up with a fresh problem that i don't think people foresaw. >> that raises another issue,

that how adequate was the planning and had you ensured that planning covered all the full range of situations you may have faced postconflict -- iraq, this is not only issues you might face directly limited to the action, but it's about security, political economic challenges that you might face? because in a way, the whole idea was to reconstruct iraq. had you planned adequately for these eventualities? >> yes, but what we thought we going to encounter in iraq i think we did plan adequately. we actually had a perfectly sensible plan, which was to make sure that, because from january on it was clear we would have responsibility in the south, that we would be able, for example, to put together very quickly and a group of iraqis, ambassador, able to take over great responsibility, but one of the planning assumptions, and i was just looking this up now and andrew turnbull gave you evidence to this effect. the planning assumption that the

foreign office differed, everybody made, was that there would be a functioning iraqi civil service. in other words, that you would remove the top level, but would you have a functioning system underneath it, and i think one of the major lessons of this is to understand that where you have these types of states, that are in the case of iraq, semifascist state if you like, which really operated by fear amongst, on the population, from a small number of people, that assumption is going to be wrong. you're going to be dealing with a situation where you probe is to rebuild the civil infrastructure of the country from nothing, and that's what we found. that you have heard from the evidence that the generals went into basra, contrary to what we thought and already planning assumptions, we found a completely broken system. >> we'll come to that, but i think you quoted lord turnbull.

i mean, the decision, as i said, to substantial land force, to the coalition, i mean, were you aware that we would occupy the uáhag@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ r@ @ @ @r "

to be in a position where we were going to be in charge of b basra. the whole assumption, you see it clearly from the documents is that you would come in for the first stage, obviously the army would be the main people in charge. you would then bring your civilian people in behind that. you would then as swiftly as possible turn it over to the iraqis themselves. the idea was to get an iraqi interim administration up and running very quickly. >> but that -- i mean, that happened, i think, after we got the security council resolution 1483, and -- >> yes, also a very important part what we wanted to do. bring the -- >> but what did we unlike other

members accept the status of a joint operating power? >> because we were the key partner of the u.s. in this. we believed in it. we believed it was right to be there for the reasons i've given and were prepared to take separate responsibility of then putting the country right. >> did we actually weigh up all the liabilities, the risks and the implications, the resources required? >> absolutely. and one of the things that we made very clear, i think i made this clear on a number of occasions, is that we could not walk away. from our commitment to people in iraq afterwards. but i believe for all the reasons i've given this was an important commitment for us to make. the whole reason why we then had quite a detailed and difficult discussion actually with the americans about the united nations then coming back in for the aftermath was precisely because we knew for ourselves and again i think peter goldsmith advises we needed that cover that military cover and

1483 effectively endorsed the coalition presence. >> but why is it that so many witnesses have said to us that the aftermath planning was deficient? >> well i think -- first of all, a lot of the criticisms are directed at american system. now, all i would say about that is, i think like you if you look at the rand report or the inspector general's report i think done in 2009, in america, i think it lays out very clearly. the problems in pre-war planning, the problems in post-war execution. i think for ourselves, if we knew then what we know now, i mean, we would, of course, do things very differently. on the other hand, for what we thought we were going to have, we had planned for it, and we actually met those eventualities. >> you say directed, criticism, at the americans. what had you agreed with president bush about the

aftermath. >> what we'd agreed was that, this was the whole dispute, really, about the united nations. we were saying the united nations had to come back into the situation. and in the end -- >> they were very reluctant to give a role and that is something i think which we wanted, tlabd was a resistance from the americans? >> yes, that's absolutely right, baroness, but in the end the americans agreed they should have what we called a vital central role. >> but saying waved off by bush had he said that? >> if you actually look at what then happened with the united nations and iraq, i think resolution 1483 is a very important resolution. i don't know whether you want to look at it now. i'm perfectly -- >> no. i have got it -- >> rather than refer to it let me make this simple point. i saw kofi annan i think on the, i think it was around the 16th of april. shortly after the military

action had begun. and i had a good and close relationship with kofi annan, someone i repped much, been in a difficult position throughout the last few months. he made it clear the u.n. had to be independent of the coalition but also made it clear he wasn't arguing for the lead role. what he was arguing for -- >> in the circumstance, not surprising. >> absolutely. >> a coalition-led invasion and he did not want full responsibility of reconstruction nap is not surprising. >> correct, but that is why when people say that as it were the u.n. should have been given the lead role, i'm simply pointing out the fact that he didn't want that. what he did want was a vital role what we got the americans to agree to. if you look at resolution 1483, it sets out the areas in which his special representative, which he agrid to appoint, was going to have influence and say, and actually that special

representative was absolutely excellent, would have made an enormous difference to iraq and its future, but the terrorists killed him, assassinated him in august 2003. >> i understand, but i want to go back to the point, because my recollection is that as early as september 2002, a number of very sensible questions were being asked of parliament about the aftermath planning and that we also had been told you were given a rather optimistic view by the americans who thought would be all right on the day? >> well, the americans were making an effort actually, but as i say, if you read the inspector general's report, you read the rand report, it's very clear. things could have been done differently. i think the american administration or administration as it were accepted that. >> you personally became involved in the aftermath around about february 2003. was it not too late? >> no. i was personally involved in what was going to happen before

then. as we came to the point of actually going in, it's true we had a meeting i think in february 2003 and then subsequent meetings, and, but the absolutely point we're trying to see what are the lessons that we can learn is that unfortunately, what we thought was going to be the problem didn't turn out to be the problem. >> that's true, but i think i go back to mierer point. it is the adequacy of the planning on a whole range of thing. economic, political, because in a way there was a danger. it was information that iraq could affected given the insecurity of the kurds what could have happened with the sunnis. a whole range of eventualities for which you planned for that wasn't done? >> well, i would say we most certainly did plan for the problems in relation to the potential for a sunni/shia kurd split and what we tried to do was to make sure that asoon as

possible we brought the sunnis and the kurds and the shia together, and so what actually happened, and this happened in may. just only a few weeks after the invasion, they brought together, it was called the iraq governing council or int prim governing council, that had a membership of 25. i think there were 13 or i think was 13 shia and 11 sunni and 1 -- >> but before that, i mean, the decision was taken, example, the aura was actually placed by cpa and, you know, changes are made without any consultation with us? >> i think -- look, what actually happened was it became very clear that he wasn't capable of doing this. >> i know. my point in terms of working together if it were a joint owling power, were we consulted? exerting the kind of influence we needed to? >> i think we being consulted on

the questions everyone thought would arishgsz but it's true. tim cross and others were coming back saying this system is n not -- it's not working the tway should, and we were then interacting strongly with the americans. the only thing i say is that how do -- had we even more focus on it we would have still been focusing essentially on the humanitarian side with an assumption that we would inherit a functioning civil service infrastructure, and it was that assumption that proved to be wrong, and i think one of the reasons why we set up, i know you have evidence about this, what's called the stabilization unit in 2004, was precisely because we recognized in the future, and i think this is what the american system now knows for sure, if you're going to go into a situation like this, you've got to go in as nation builders and you've got go in with a configuration of the political and the civilian and the military that is right for a

failed state situation. it doesn't mean to sigh you don't do it but you need to be prepared for it. >> but the point, really is, our assumption was that we would get the united nations to -- in the lead role. eventually. that didn't happen. did we have a plan b then? in a sense all i'm really wanting to get at is the ability to plan for eventualityies. >> we did plan for those eventualities in analysis of what they might be and worked them out. the trouble was, we didn't plan for two things. one was, as i say, the absence of this properly functioning civil service infrastructure and the second thing, the single most important element of this whole business of what happened afterwards. people did not think that al qaeda and iran would play the role that they did. and we could have -- wa you'd ended up having was essentially an indigenous and violence or

insurgency or the criminality and looting and so on, again, issues to do with the numbers of troop, the types of troops -- >> come to that later, and i want to pass on now. >> all right. i wanted -- >> you can continue. >> do finish. >> wanted to finish my saying. that all of those are very important questions. we could have handled the situation if that had been the problem. it was the introduction of the external elements of an iran that really caused this mission very nearly to fell. fortunately in the end it didn't, and the reason why that is important is that in itself, in my view is a huge lesson, because those the same force, we're now facing. afghanistan, right around the region. >> that's an area we'll cover later. >> thank you. >> i think we'll take a break in a moment. i just wanted -- in hearing this set of exchanges and reading a great deal, hearing a good deal of evidence, that the war in terms of the planning for the aftermath on the british side,

leave aside the americans, and we've seen the rand report and the lessons report, there was a single set of assumptions, which regrettably turned out to be very overoptimistic what we would find, but there appears to have been no real risk analysis looking at best case, middle case, worst case, and at the resource and planning horizon implications of that. what we did know, and i would not like to sound like donald rumsfeld, we knew we knew very little about the conditions of things inside saddam's iraq. not a natural intelligence target, in principle could have amassed a good deal of knowledge, but none of it sufficient. question. looking to the future, the lesson to be drawn, is it ever safe to look at a single set of

assumptions unless they can be tested quite rigorously against a worst-case background? oonchts think that's very good question. i think that actually we did, because the mrchlts o.d. did a massive amount of work, on the planning assumptions paper, as you know, and we did focus on this. we really tried to drill down on it. and one of the reasons why in early 2003 i was having quite a difficult exchange of correspondence was because rightly getting worried that the humanitarian side was not going to be adequately advanced. i think in the future you're best to make this assumption, actually -- that these types of failed states, i don't know whether you describe iraq as a failed state, a semifascist state, whatever it was, it was a wholly dysfunctional system.

if we're required to go into this type of situation again, you might as well assume the worst, actually, because it's going to be -- you are dealing with states that are deeply repressive, very secretive, power is controlled by very small number of people, and it's always going to be tough. now, i think the real question in a way for us, as a country, because i think whatever preparations you make, this was always going to be tough. always going to be tough. is, are we prepared to engage in this? are we actually prepared to be in there for the long term on nation building, in these difficult situations, fighting a completely different type of >> briefly follow-through on that point. hindsight is a wonderful thing.

with all the wisdom, it seems obvious now. indeed the iranians would as well. as you just said, they have a destabilizing effect. they must have enjoyed putting pressure on us and the americans. time when they tried to put them under pressure to deal with thá

2003? what's the attitude going to be? you might get elements of the revolutionary guard playing well about, but basically the evidence was that iran would more or less have a watching brief to see how it plays out and had no interest in destabilizing. >> despite the fact that iran had fought a long war and weren't best pals. >> that was the point. the cause as it were, saddam had been the enemy and there were a million casualties and precisely because they would be pleased to

get rid of saddam. we thought they would be more aminable. i spoke myself to the president of iran prior to september 11 when we were trying to get the new resolution. i had a telephone conversation at the time and basically had gone out of my way to say let's have a new relationship and so on. in respect with iran, that's the advice. we did go into this in some detail. in retrospect, this was difficult. at the time, and we know so much more about these groups and how they operate now, but at the time the single thing people were most determined to prove was in a sense they were two separate problems. the americans had raised this question of a link between saddam and al qaeda.

really asked them to say no, come on, keep the two things separate. we are not saying saddam had anything to do with september 11. that was how they were seen. now, i think that's the 2010 point we said earlier. if we left saddam there and he carried on as we said with the intent to develop the weapons and the know how and the concealment and the sanctions, i have little doubt myself that it's a judgment and other people may take a different judgment. today we would be facing a situation where iraq was competing both on nuclear weapons capability and more important perhaps than anything else, competing as well as nuclear issue in help to support terrorist groups. >> it would be very useful if we have time at the end.

you raised it as a binary question. there alternative scenarios that saddam might very well be in a box. it wasn't a question about that, but they did go back down. we wanted to have another question to you. that's simply this. you went to baghdad in may and met them. of course when bremer arrived, he arrived setting up the cpa that everyone described as a shambles. with two extremely important things on the iraqi armed

forces, other witnesses have told us we disagree with the principal and it was the extent. that damage has to be undone. a lot of damage it turned out was done by them. based on what we heard in evidence. my question is this. had we been consulted, if they haven't consulted. >> i don't know whether there was official contact and i know i hadn't had the discussion with the white house. the moment we were aware of this. he was in baghdad then and on to the case. i think one of the things that

obviously you will do and discuss how big of a factor it was. >> we have already. >> i'm not sure in my own mind about this now. i think in help for this, it was going to be really difficult to prevent a certain level. the question is, should it have gone down? all i would say about that was that the pressure -- because this is almost impossible to understand how repressed the population felt. they had this freedom. they detested these people. i remember meeting groups of iraqis before the invasion and they would tell you if the torture chambers and all of that.

we have the same problem with the nazi party in germany after the war. it's a very, very difficult situation there. even now because i got on to president bush straight away on this. >> it was kind of too late. effectively we hadn't been consulted. as soon as we heard about it, you got on to it. >> it's a decision at the moment. it would have been sensible if there had been a major discussion. >> the answer is yes. >> to be fair to the americans, the moment that it happened, we raised the issues with them and actually they reacted to it. >> they didn't withdraw the decisions? >> they amended substantially. i think again i would consult

carefully with the people who took them. i have spoken to people subsequent to this. it's true it would have been better not to have done it in disbanding the army, but it's a live debate among the people that it will air at the time. as a result of the conversation we had literally days after this, they were scaling back further. they were always intending to rerecruit and corrected the pension problem they had pretty quickly. all i would say is i think it's something you need to take a range of use on. >> they are obviously into the postwar president.

we have discussed before the isg report. i think we can agree saddam never lost his interest in the programs. the facilities discussed had not been found. what was your -- when did you realize that was likely to be the case? >> as time went on through the course of 2003, in the beginning we have taken evidence of a genuine belief about this. we were constantly almost daily getting reports and trying to

direct the armed forces and it was a major part of our operation after the 19th of march. obviously it became difficult to sustain. >> general frey cold us even as the troops were on the mission, it became disillusioned. it was supposed to be there and wasn't there. even in the course of 2003. we have gone into the campaign on one assumption. it meant that the quality of post saddam iraq was now going to be a major test of what we were doing.

briefly go back before the war. were you aware of the assessment on the american army and it wasn't just him saying this. were you aware of that? >> i was aware there was a debate with the american system. did you use the doctrine of overwhelming force or have a smaller group of people and a smaller force? i think you can argue for the actual conflict itself. there were sufficient troops. the question is should you then have changed and had more later? that is a difficult question to

answer and people take both sides of that. >> part of the debate was in the united states it was to demonstrate that it was possible to where each the campaign of this sort with comparatively few forces meant that he underprovided for the situation that would arrive after the war. in some sense they were predetermined. it would be difficult after the war. there weren't enough troops around. >> this is a major, major part of how any such operation would be done in the future. the force to remove a regime and change the government, if that's

what happened and this is the only way we can prevent saddam from being a threat is to remove him from office. the force required to do that is one function. you are probably more expert than me. what we should notice know is you will be nation-building after that. that may require a quite different type of force and it may require more and different forces, but it's a different task. >> they had more in being able to move quickly to this nation-building road. with that said, i don't think

the americans would disagree. that was not the way they looked at it they made very little provisions in training, doctrine and numbers for the forces that would provide for the security and the iraqi army. >> and the disbanding of the army, i think. >> it was the pensions point you mentioned. it didn't exist as an organized force, but a basis of getting

back together quickly which was lost. #@@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my view was to stop the reconstruction. so every time we'd repair electricity, they'd bomb it. every time we got the old production going, they'd try to sabotage it.ñi every time they try to provide better facilities, they'd try and wreck it. so the issue is a security issue. now, i think we've moved beyond what was the debate at the time , which really went something like this, and you probably recall this from 2003 and the  early part ofñi 2004, and that was a debate which said, look, the americans are going to do more fighting, but the british can do both.

i think if we are looking at our own capabilities now and what we will do in the future, i think it's not as simple as that, actually. and if you look at what general petraeus did in the end with the surge, it is correct that he had his political dimension reaching out to the sunnis and so on, but as the surge began, the american forces suffered even heavier casualties. i mean, they were doing fighting. casualties. they were doing fighting and one of the things that i'm afraid we have to learn because we face the same situation in afghanistan is in these circumstances is not going to be easy. you are facing a situation where the enemy -- >> it partly depends upon your

ability to assert order and authority early on. that's where things are and we can remember. let me fast forward. april of 2004. a lot of things happened in that month. one of them is they left the coalition group. they were being dissen franchised? this was coming to a head and enter the city with force to take out 2,000 insurgents. how did you view that situation? it was potentially extremely

dangerous. >> it certainly was, yes. i was involved why discussions with the americans and the president and also with -- taking on the interim administration in iraq. i was afraid americans were going in too hard and too heavy. they made certain changes out of the conversation that we were having. if i looked back now, i see that the truth is we were reaching out to the sunni. one of the reasons why i could see us having a more challenging

situation in the south into 2005 and it was something we were discussing in the government was that it would become very clear at some point the purpose of what we were doing. not to replace the sunni dictatorship and minority, we wanted a genuinely inclusive government. we thought we might be able to dissuade and we were their best chance of participating in the process. the reality is there were people who were quite determined not to allow that reconciliation to happen. this illustrates the dilemma you now faced. the coalition faced. on the one hand you had people who clearly have no interest in any o kaccommodation and starti

to cause serious casualties developing numbers and skills and not just external forces. these are indigenous. if you came down too hard on them, the risk was of alienating further the scenes that would be out of al jazeera and concerned, i suspect, about the impact of what he could do. the dilemmas you found yourself in. either way it would be tough. >> it was going to be tough and one of the central questions, my view is the way that is right. we should carry on and having beat one tyranny.

i was of the view that we have to carry on. the interesting thing to me is it's a problem in all nations dealing with this new type of terrorism. i spend a lot of time out there now overseeing the middle east, it's a constant problem for israel. they get attacked, they then use great force in retaliatinretali. before you have gone two week, they are the people that started it all. if you look at the difficulties that india has or chechnya or -- >> it's true that the nature of the response makes a difference to it and we talk about these other cases. the problem that you were in at

the time is that the forces available to the coalition were insufficient to get a grip on it. and the message they would have to use in order to impose themselves militarily would be much more likely to cause civilian casualties than they would have done if huh had far more forces properly trained to start with. >> this wasn't the issue down south. >> that's the other issue for april 2004. >> i think you have to look at question very carefully because i think i would put it in a different way. i think if you look at how the surge actually worked in the end, it worked because you had a political -- really worked for four reasons. >> the surge worked in very different circumstances than those obtaining in 2003.

>> that's not my point. if you analyze why it worked, then 2007 and in 2004 it wasn't working, that's the question. >> it worked because you had forces that were trained for the job. huh a doctrine that was appropriate and political conditions including the aspiration of the iraqis with help. in 2003 thought it was different. let me stay in april. you have got the consideration of the sheer areas more likely to be settle and given indication of this as well. we are starting to find even there there is violence taking root. this is a really serious concern for you. this is where the british forces were. >> absolutely. what was clear is that as i say, this influence was growing and we debated a lot what to do.

did we try to reach out? we tried to make approaches there. there was an issue there. would that provoke more violence? this is why these things become really, really difficult. i didn't mean to take you out of your time zone. the reason i think it's so important is it's a real lesson out of this. you are bound to take a certain amount of time to win this battle. essentially what happened in iraq and we tried to explain this before. you had one conflict which was the removal of the regime. that was over pretty quickly. you had the aftermath which was difficult, but what started to happen in 2004, 2005 and with full on in 2006, the first half of 2007. the process is into a different

type of conflict. you were fighting a certain amount of insurgency and with the external factors coming in. in the end, what did we need? four things to defeat this. two of them take time. is we needed the political buy in. the 2nd is we needed iraqi capability and then the right troop configuration and the 4th thing is, we needed to be pr the 4th thing is, we needed to be prepared to indicate clearly we were going to stick it. >> you have taken us again three or four years further on. these are the final aspects of

2004 which was the regulations of what happened at abu ghraib. what was your reaction when you saw the photographs of the conditions inside the prison? >> i was shock and angry as anyone would be. shocked because it was wrong and angry because of the damage i knew it would do. you mentioned the media part of this and al jazeera. the truth is we were fighting a constant battle against people misrepresenting us and our motives and what we were trying to do and obviously the abuse of prisoners was going to be vital propaganda. >> have you been given advanced warning? >> i think everyone was taken by surprise, including the white house. >> there was knowledge from january? >> i appointed and included as

human rights adviser, we made an effort to try to say things are going to happen differently. there is no excuse for it. it's completely wrong. the most important thing is it did damage to our cause. on the other hand, it's right to say this at the time. the activities of the few within the american forces and the british forces shouldn't take away the fact that they were doing a magnificent job in incredible circumstances. we were doing that job for the iraqi people and protecting them and helping them. >> at the moment the coalition is unable to provide security for the iraqi people and you

indicated without security life can't get better. infrastructure as blown up. for the iraqi people, things are not getting better. is that fair to say? if you look at the promises that have been made to them, it might have grounds for disillusionment. if i give you figures, i find them tragic. in january of 2010, january monthly figures and documented civilian deaths from violence in iraq. 570 in january 2004.

1,042 in january of 2005. 1,433 in january of 2006. 2,807 in january of 2007. these are monthly figures. these are the documented deaths. they are not deterioration services for health and so on. the striking thing is you are getting worse every year. when did you feel you could do about this? what could you say to the iraqi people that could explain what they must have celt with a sense of let down. we would carry on for the process. you would be able to elect your government and officials.

you are drawing up. the 2nd thing is we will be with you and defeat this. the certain thing to say and this is important to the argument, when people say there were people dieing in iraq and the most relb&e@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ the co-decision forces weren't ones doing the killing. the ones doing the killing were the terrorists, the sectarians, and they were deliberately to stop us making the progress we wanted to make. so my attitude -- and i took this line very, very strongly with people -- when we say isn't it terrible that the death toll went to 2007 that high, yes, it is terrible. but the first question to ask is, who is killing them? and this turned out to be precisely the same people that we were trying to fight everywhere, and our

responsibility was to stick in there and see it through, which eventually happened with the surge, with the charge of the knights down in basra, and today, of course, the situation in iraq is very, very different. and the people are better off and have a decent chance of a proper future. >> let us hope so. >> well, i think that's the evidence that was given to you. >> certainly better off than they were in 2007. >> or in 2003 or 2002 or 2001. two or one. >> i have conversations with iraqis. that's something that has to be and that only improved. can i go back to this question of responsibility.

if we have gone into a country occupying and this is evidence that we got from the general describing the situations they made in 2006. the commander is responsible for a city of 1.3 million people and told me they could put no more than 30 on multiples on the ground and less than 200 soldiers on the ground. that was the commander in the late 1970s with a brigade on the ground. the result was the cycle of insecurity.

they filled the gap that we left. >> that was a different situation and why? we built up the capacity of the iraqi forces themselves and in the end, the british would take that and in the end we managed and if it wasn't for the forces in basra, making sure that we were acting and helping keep this at bay the entire time. here's the point that we have to get in the western world and

when we are doing these types of operations. yes, it is our responsibility. let's be clear why we face the difficulty. we face the difficulty because these people were prepared to kill any number of people and in the 1st half of 2004, we had 30 in the 1st half of 2005 that is 200000. we should be prepared to take them on. it should not be a reason for being there or fighting them. >> supposedly the final question is this is a very heavy price to pay, was it not, for the lack of preparation.

what we planned for is what we thought was going to happen. i will give you my view or we'll make a mistake in future such situations. however much you plan and whatever forces you have, if you have these elements who are prepared to destabilize, you will be in a long drawn out situation. the fact that these people in breech of not just the rules of international law and humanity are prepared to do these things to frustrate the will of the people should not mean we back away from confronting them.

we were there to make sure that having been released from saddam, they were released from the reign of terror. i do speak to iraqis and i spoke to one a few days back. he said to me we changed for the politics. the progress is extraordinary. nobody would want to go back to no freedom and student and no hope. we have to take our responsibility seriously and we were in the same situation now in afghanistan does heaven know when is we will be again in the future. the lesson after my view is we will be prepared for the long haul and stick it through until the end.

>> we will pass it over to the chairman. >> we want to talk about the afghanistan as it were. not to look at them in their own right. >> just one, really. he was against the idea of deploying into more troops until we produced our commitments in iraq. we decided to take them and deploy much larger troop contingent and the effect was by the end of 2006 as the peak, we had over 7,000 troops with iraq

and over 6,000 then in afghanistan. and the army as the elements? >> we were then fighting in two theaters of operation. again i think the decision to go down was taken or began to be taken in 2005. we were told we were able to do this and right that we did it. what was happening in iraq was that unlike the and the problem was people were worried that most of the taxes were happening on us. our concern was that overtime we

should be building up the iraqi capability and that would allow us to drawdown. we were capable of doing it and we wouldn't if we weren't. >> it was a stretch. >> the suggestion came from the mod. it will be tough, but we can do it and should do it. right at the moment, it was difficult. we were prepared to make the commitment. on the 23rd of july, 2002. would you care to say which of the options and you said that

you did not want any discussions with other departments at this stage and did not want any of this around the system. >> we were discussing in relation to the military. now at a later time as you know there were officials that were involved in the planning meetings and i think -- >> that came at a very late stage and a lot of pressure. >> the officials wering to and it was at a later time that t y they.

>> at early stages, you need full department engagement. >> we were in close touch and right at that moment, the single most important areas were diplomacy and were the issues to do with military planning. i know much has been made at the add hock meetings with the large age. the key players were there to have a proper discussion and take the decisions necessary. that's what we did before and afterwards. >> that's true, but he said i think you should include even if you would be difficult. in a way if you look at the

aftermath reconstruction, you had the lockers. . all i would say is we had the key players and there was a constant interaction. in so far as we were predicting, we made provision for it and the relationship between myself and jack and the politicianticians and also the chief of defense. we are close and we were in close interaction and as we got it, they want to cut the meetings and that was fair enough that happened. the issue however they were focused on decided to be fair. they did a good job of it.

>> as you mentioned. >> i don't want to go over old ground. they met frequently in the cab ned, not that they were not consulted. the papers were not circulate and they found none whoa would take full collective responsibility to understand and if necessary, challenge with the cabinet discussion.

and 28. there was a constant interaction with and people would describe the formal discussion. they would take people through the information we had. there was an immense amount and inside as well. i don't think they felt they couldn't challenge. obviously the issues have the nature of the issues they were held. i was in constant interaction for 2002 and 2003.

>> you both have very different testimony. the same thought you need to accommodate any difference and respond to it within a collective cabinet or smaller grouping. # >> nobody was aware of the whol it was the same with article amount. i was subject to constant numbers of people telling me you shouldn't do this, you should do that, you should do it differently, and so on. and so in relation to the planning afterwards, i mean, whatever else, whatever differences we may have had

from time to time, the one thing i would never accuse her of being is backward in coming forward. so there was a huge, all the time, interaction, as i say, between people on the very issues. >> thank you. i think we'd like to explore just one other aspect of this, and that's the interaction between major strategic policymaking at cabinet and ministerial level. making at cabinet level and going into that of key legal advice. we will not go over the ground, but there is a set of questions we just would like to pursue and starting with you. >> we discussed the process for which he was involved in the decision making process. what became very clear that during the time particularly before july of 2002.

i think they had to write to them and he saw a memo of the comments and he was having to write and them that he should be seeking his legal advice. the fact that he had to respond to people making statements without being clear about the legal situation. do you think that could have been avoided if the attorney discussed issues in the cab met and that would have actually ensured that the formal advice of the attorney would have been preempted? >> i think the very first paper we got in march or the clutch of papers we got in march of 2002. and the legal paper provided by him was fully aware of all this. people had the basic legal

framework. now i think it's perfectly good for peter. he is the attorney general and he thought he was going to say something about something unwise. he got on the phone and said it would have make a difference. which he did to say i don't agree. >> he was constantly having to ask and write his opinion to and provide his continue and he said he wasn't always welcome. >> he said that about the particular opinion and not that it wasn't welcome, i was dealing with a difficult situation and i had another issue to take account of. he was completely right to do it because it made a difference the

way we approach 1441. i'm very happy to talk about how, for example, you might do some of these things differently now. i don't think having peter at the cabinet meeting would have made a difference. having the confidence to be able to say as he should as an independent attorney as it were for the government to pick up the phone and even to the prime minister which he did say this is what you can and this is what you can't say. >> that doesn't allow for a collective decision making for a proper consideration and so on. >> with respect to the legal opinion, i think the key thing really was this. they weren't interested in become part of the legal debate. they wanted to know is the attorney general saying it is or it's not? with respect to the other

issues, there were debates about this and it was not just about the issues, but the aftermath questions in cabinet. >> but going back to the legal advice, when the cabinets met in march, he entered the draft and the answer, but there was no discussion on the legal advice. we have seen the report of a discussion that he had with mr. strong on the 13th of march in which he was persuaded not to have a finally balanced paper and the paper which would be the parliamentary question. i think they made it clear they wanted to discuss it and know whether they changed his mind. no such discussion took place. >> the whole purpose of having.

>> the legal basis is essential, but not television. >> in terms of whether it was right or wrong to do it, that was the discussion. once the members of the cabinet were really focused on the politics and he wanted to get resolution, i'm with you. if you can't, i think it's too difficult. we were focused on those political as well as legal questions. for themselves and civil

servants and so on him was is there a proper legal base for this or not and his answer was yes. now we actually said, and this is the reason why we had peter there, and i think in any future situation it is sensible to have the attorney there. but we offered, in a sense we offered him up. he was the lawyer there to talk about it. >> mr. blair, do you think there is a contrast of approach between what frequently happens in dublin at all levels including to the top, but informing policy you engage with legal advice because it may need expression in statute or comply with existing areas of law, you fold in the legal advice through the policymaking process, that's one approach. the other is to set very clearly what your policy objectives are and as in the iraq case, they

may be high end strategic objectives and then work around and through and with the constraints and opportunities that legal advice then gives. do you see a difference of approach there? >> i think that there could be. but i would say in this situation, since in a way march 2002 was the time when you set the first framework for this, the legal advice was one of the key things we asked for and we got it. and that legal advice -- it is interesting to go back and look at it, it was legal advice that was saying you needed a fresh resolution. and one of the reasons why we went down the path was to give a fresh resolution. one of the things, this was part of the debate that happened later, is i felt while we got the fresh resolution, so why is this still a legal problem, but i was told what the problem was. >> it still seems from what we

have heard today and from previous witnesses that there was a very clear strategic policy objective set for iraq, which was to bring about compliance with the united nations resolutions, disarmament, wmds, and regime change by the military means, that was the last resort, but not ruled out. but there were moments, very, very late in january, february, march 2003, when that policy objectives could have been blocked by failure because of a legal constraint. is that unavoidable in situations like this? >> well, i think it is unavoidable in a situation where it is that controversial and divisive and it is that, you know, not open to challenge. and, you see, the there actually could have been a major debate about kosovo and legality.

there wasn't. because in the end most of the people went along with the action we were doing. the truth is the law and the politics follow each other quite closely. >> yes. >> and i think necessarily in this situation where we were setting a strategic objectives, you know, we had this strong belief, as i say this is my belief now too that this threat had to be dealt with a certain amount of urgency, so -- and our alliance with the united nations of america and so on, all the issues to do with saddam, and that obviously at the same time you're -- as you're proceeding and strategies are evolving, diplomacy is evolving, you're looking at the issues to do with legality. >> i think we just would like to ask one or two more questions before we come to the close. so usha. >> my final question is about the effective government, because there will be a sort of

long command chain because if you're looking at the top decisionmakers in london, working with soldiers and civilians who had to deliver locally in iraq, it is quite a complex operation. and many of these issues across departmental and therefore quite a new operation had to come together. how did you hold your sector state accountable for delivery because delivery was your mantra at that stage. how did you make sure that was to be delivered was being delivered effectively on the ground? >> in the prewar part, we had the ad hoc group on iraq of officials which met from september onwards and that included all the relevant departments. i was chairing the ad hoc ministerials and we had 28 of those meeting. afterwards we had the war cabinet and then jack straw became the effective chairman of

the -- the ministers and the officials driving forward policy from that front. there wasn't an issue, really at any stage of this with people not feeling they were part of this apart from the one issue to do with claire and the ad hoc committee which was resolved in i think early 2003. >> but there was no minister cabinet rank reporting back and driving the state today because from what we were hearing on the ground. this was his comment to us. >> yes, i think one of the questions, i think this has been raised in some of the evidence to you is do you, again, if we knew then what we know now would you want perhaps to put a specific cabinet minister in charge of this? i think all these things are worth looking at. and the only thing i would say to you is we were partly through my own personal involvement but

also because you have mike boies and the chiefs of staff committee, you have the officials meeting, you had david manning, very closely involved in this. i can't really think and i think andrew said this to you in the evidence that there was a machine of government problem in the sense that if we had a different machinery, we would have acted differently. i don't think that. that's a judgment. >> one thing i want to put to you because david bowman who we saw last week, he emphasized the importance of structured decision-making so you're simply not swept away along with the pace of events in like military operations and did you -- do you think we had the ability and the rule to pause and look at our strategy. in the event this didn't happen,

did we actually think, did we actually stop and re-evaluate our strategy at that stage? >> we would have entirely re-evaluated our strategy had, as i say, and i'm using this as a short term, saddam hussein done a -- he said i'm finished with all this i'm dish want to join the international community on proper terms. but he didn't. and what he did, and this is where, as i say, the iraq survey group, unfortunately people have only looked at one part of their findings and not the other part of their findfindings, he never any intention of complying because he had the intention once he got sanctions out of the way of restarting it again. even later it became clear that our efforts were a strategic failure. i mean, did we think at that stage? because the impression one gets is responding to events on the ground. were you doing any thinking? >> absolutely. the reason why we were in a constant talk very quickly after the conflict was because what we were finding.

and then as i say, there was a metamorphosis of the whole struggle with it and battle, when, you know, the a.q. and iran elements became upper most, and then it really did change sbume a different type of fight. and one of the interesting things, for example, kimberly kagen does this on her book on the surge, id it's important, because in the end, that is what worked, what nobq foresaw was that iran would actually end up, in fact, supporting a.q. i mean, everyone -- the conventional wisdom was these two are completely different types of people, because iran is shia, the al qaeda people are sunni, and therefore, the two would never mix. what happened in the end was that they did. they both had a common interest in destabilizing the country. and for iran, i think the reason they were interested in

destabilizing iraq was because they worried aboutçó having a functioning majority shee i can't country with a democracy on their doorstep, and for al qaeda, they knew perfectly well theiwhissi was to try to say the west was oppressing islam. it's hard to do that if you replace tyrannical governments with functioning democracies. governments with functional democracies. >> from your of view you think the machine of the government worked? >> i can't think -- i don't doubt you could have have a different machinery, but we did have a machinery of government that worked and worked effectively in order to analyze the problems were we are likely to face and how we were dealt -- how we would deal with them. i think no doubt there are other ways that it can be done. >> on reflection there is nothing you would do differently? >> i think when you look back now and i would just say to you earlier, for example, if you want to look at maybe putting a

specific cabinet minister in charge of this, there are all sorts of things that if you know now what you knew then you would do differently. in terms of what we knew at the time we had a machinery of government that was perfectly adequate for it. there were, as i say, 25 separate cabinet meetings, 24 ad hoc -- 28 ad hoc committee meetings, regular weekly meetings of the officials. now you could put them with a capital a and capital h rather than a small a and small h but it wouldn't have made a difference to the decisionmaking. >> we're coming to the end, i think, mr. blair. i got a couple questions i'd like to raise. the first is to look at the perspective of the whole enterprise from the standpoint of the people of iraq. the coalition went in, as liberators. rather soon they began to be resented by parts of the population and then attacked as occupiers by some.

by the time british forces withdrew from basra city to the airport, 90% of the attacks there were against them as against between members of the shia factions. so do you think, looking back from 2010 that the people of iraq thought that the enterprise was worthwhile and just as one piece, not of evidence, but a bit of anecdote, a very senior constitutional iraqi said clearly it was good that saddam is gone. the inept nature of some of the things that the coalition did, the coalition, not british, has caused great suffering. so the price was high. >> it is too early to say right now whether the iraqi democracy will take root and will function effectively. although as i think john jenkins

and frank baker said to you, there are really hopeful signs. and just to say some of the things that i think are taking place in iraq today, if you look, for example, at the electricity, you look at income per head, several times what it was under saddam, you look at now the money that is being spent on infrastructure, i think, yes, it was a very, very difficult fight indeed. it was always going to be difficult once the external factors came into play with aq and iran. but, sure, when you go into a nation-building situation in the future i think we will be far better prepared and better educated than we were then. i would just give one -- if we're talking about, you know, was it worth it in terms of the

iraqis themselves, if you look at the latest information from the brookings institute and the polls that they're doing about the right direction, wrong direction to the country, they are actually upbeat about the future. if you look at whether they believe that security and services are getting better, a majority of them think they are. despite all the trouble, despite the fact these terrorists carry on. let me give you just one example of where i think you can see both the nature, since we're talking about how is it for iraqis, because the iraqis were less worried about the issues to deal with united nations and so on, they were worried about their country and the oppression. focus for a moment on what this saddam regime was like. in 2000 and 2001 and 2002, they had a child mortality rate of 130 per thousand children under the age of 5, worse than the

congo. that was despite the f saddam had as much money as he wanted for immunization programs and medicines for those children. that equates to roughly about 90,000 deaths under the age of 5 a year. the figure today is not 130, it is 40. that equates to about 50,000 young people, children who as a result of a different regime that cares about its people, that's the result that getting rid of saddam makes. you can talk to iraqis, of course, who will say to you, some of them particularly those from the sunni side still worried about whether they'll be able to come into the politics, and some of them may say, well, i don't believe it was worth it. but i think if you ask the majority of iraqis today would you really prefer, with all the

challenges that lie ahead, to be back under saddam, i think you get a pretty overwhelming answer to that question. >> the other perspective, clearly, and you will appreciate this better than anyone can probably, our participation in the iraq conflict has been very divisive here and abroad, has caused deep anguish to those who lost people they loved, some of whom are in this room. there is gratitude, great gratitude to our armed forces for their sacrifices they made and the bravery they showed and great sorrow at their losses, but we, like you, have also experienced at first hand the angle which is still felt by many people in this country. and we have been asking, therefore, the question why and so as we conclude today, can i ask what broad lessons you draw, you've drawn some already in the course of your testimony, and to say whether you have regrets

about key aspects of the iraq conflict? >> i mean, i said some of the things that i think are lessons that could be learned about nation-building. i think you got to look very carefully at what type of forces you require because this will be a security situation that you face, a challenging security situation. i think you also really got to look at the issue to do with the nature of this threat from al qaeda on the one hand, iran on the other and the impact that that will have not just on iraq, but potentially in different arenas right around the middle east region and beyond. and i feel, of course, i have to take this decision as prime minister and it was a huge responsibility then and there is not a single day that passes by that i don't reflect and think about that responsibility. and so i should.

but i genuinely believe that if we had left saddam in power, even with what we know now, we would still have had to have dealt with them, possibly in circumstances where the threat was worse, and possibly in circumstances where it was hard to mobilize any support for dealing with that threat. and i think we live in a completely new security environment today. i thought that then. i think that now. it is why i've said this to you a number of times today, take a very hard, tough line on iran today. and many of the same arguments apply. in the end it was divisive. and i'm sorry about that. and i tried my level best to bring people back together again. but if i'm asked whether i believe we are safer, more secure, that iraq is better but our own security is better, with saddam and his two sons out of power and out of office than in office, i believe indeed that we

are. and i think in time to come, if iraq becomes, as i hope and believe that it will, the country that its people want to see, then we can look back and in particular our armed forces can look back with an immense sense of pride and achievement in what they did. >> no regrets? >> responsibility, but not a regret for moving saddam hussein. i think he was -- >> be quiet, please. >> i think that he was a monster. i believe he threatened not just the region, but the world. and in the circumstances that we face then, but i think even if you look back now, it was better to deal with this threat, to deal with it, to remove him from office, and i do genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result. and i know sometimes, because this happens out in the region, sometimes people say to me, well, saddam was a break on

iran. let's be clear, there is another view of foreign policy in this instance, which is the way -- if we left saddam in place, he would have -- he would have controlled iran better. i really think it is time we learned, as a matter of sensible foreign policy, that the way to deal with one dictator threat is not to back another. the best answer is to allow the iraqi people the freedom and democratic choice that we enjoy in countries like ours. >> thank you. this brings us, i think, to the end of today's hearings. is there any final comment beyond those you already made that you would wish to add before we close? >> no. >> in that case, can i say two things. the first is that there clearly are considerable limits to what we can cover in one day, the

inquiry still has much work to do. and among other things our witness today, mr. blair, has drawn attention to a number of dimensions arising out of iran, which i think we shall want to pursue. can i, with that, thank our witness for a long day of testimony, a long, hard day, i think, and thank very much those of you who have been here as witnesses to this session, as to those who were present in the morning session. thank you, all, very much indeed. now, with that, we'll resume hearings next week on monday at 11:00 in the morning and later on in late february or early march we'll be taking testimony from the prime minister, from mr. gordon brown and other senior ministers, perhaps. so with that, we close this session. thank you, [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> up next, "q&a" with terry teachout. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern, your phone calls and questions on "washington journal." and live at 11:30 this morning, white house budget directory talks about the president's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. >> state department officials discuss the president's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. live coverage today starts at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> this week on "q&a," terry teachout, drama critics and arts columnist for the "wall street journal" talks about his new buy raef of louis armstrong.

>> over the years that i've been reading you,y always wanted to ask you zpash we've never met -- where the name teachout came from. >> it's dutch as far as i know, andy spent my whole life spelling it to people, who always say, oh, just like it sounds. >> where did you grow up? >> southeast missouri town in the boot hill. all my family is still back there. >> create the time when you were with instrument in hand playing music, or do you still do that? >> i don't play anymore. i'm a recovering my playing music, well, when i was in junior high school. not long after i first heard louis armstrong for the first time, which was when i was 8 years old. i started out on violin. i heard jazz and thought i'd like to play this, not the best for that. so i borrowed a bass, a stand-up bass from the junior high school band room, took it