1 Boring Old Man

Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair asked for war plans to be prepared in June 2002
Daily Telegraph, UK
By Gordon Rayner
30 Nov 2009

Sir David said the former prime minister asked defence chiefs to prepare a list of options for military support of a US-led invasion after being told President Bush had set up a “cell” dedicated to planning for a war. Sir David also disclosed that President Bush and Mr Blair first discussed a possible link between Saddam and the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US just three days after 9/11. Asked when Britain first decided to take part in military action, Sir David said: “The first time the Prime Minister asked for military options was in June 2002…

He said in September 2002 the Ministry of Defence was asked to attend a planning conference with their US counterparts in Florida, when Mr Blair said Britain would be willing to provide the second military “package”, but by October, following further discussions between Mr Blair and defence chiefs, “there was an acceptance that if it came to military action we would be willing to move to package three”…

As the Iraq Inquiry entered its second week, Sir David was asked when President Bush first linked Iraq to 9/11. He said: “As far as I’m aware the first time the president mentioned Iraq to the Prime Minister was on September 14 in a telephone call and he said he thought there might be evidence that there was some connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

“The Prime Minister’s response was that the evidence would have to be very compelling indeed to justify taking any action against Iraq.” By April 2002, however, following a meeting between the President and the Prime Minister, Mr Blair had begun talking about “regime change” in Iraq. Last week Sir Christopher Meyer, former ambassador to Washington, suggested Mr Blair and Mr Bush might have “signed in blood” an agreement to topple Saddam during that meeting at the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, but Sir David insisted there was “no war plan” at that stage.

He said: “The president did set up a small cell in Central Command in Florida and he had asked Central Command to do some planning and think through the various options.” By August 2002 “the message was that either the regime must change through the UN or it would be changed through military action. “The President said that if Saddam Hussein implemented the UN resolutions [on weapons of mass destruction] we would have succeeded in changing the regime. He said, in a rather colourful phrase, we would have crated the guy”…

The way I would read this today is that it’s all about whether they could justify attacking Iraq immediately:
• "info fast" "judge whether good enough" "judge whether hit S.H. same time" "not only UBL."
  We need to judge whether we have enough information to justify attacking Iraq immediately.
• "tasks Jim Haynes to talk with PW for additional support vis a vis ___ & connection with UBL."
  Get Jim Haynes to talk to Paul Wolfowitz to find additional support for the connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
• "hard to get a good case" "need to move swiftly" "near term target needs" "go massive" "sweep it all up" "things related and not" "need to do so to get anything useful."
  It’s hard to make the case that bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are connected, so we need to move quickly and massively to find evidence of their connections before the evidence is lost.