ChilcotStatement169706Draft1

DRAFT
STATEMENT FROM THE RT HON JACK STRAW

The judgement which I, and colleagues, made in mid-March 2003, to take military
action in respect of Iraq, was by far and away the most serious decision in which I
was ever involved.
The consequences which flow from those decisions will, rightly, live with me for the
rest of my life.
I grieve for all those who lost their lives in the conflict and its aftermath, and their
families.
There have been two charges which have been made against those at a senior level
who recommended military action to Parliament.
The first charge is that the case for war was based “on a lie”; the second is that the
decision was “illegal”.
Neither charge has been substantiated [in any way] by the Chilcot Report.
At all times I acted in good faith, and on the best evidence we had available at the
time – including that of UN weapons’ inspectors, led by Dr Blix. I did not take the
intelligence I received at face value, but questioned those providing it about its
provenance. In the end I came to the conclusion that military action was necessary,
and I saw it then as a last resort. I acknowledge that the Inquiry, in retrospect, says
that the point of ‘last resort’ had not been reached – but that was not how I saw
matters at the time.
It would certainly have been far better if we had been able to obtain a second
resolution in the Security Council. I worked ceaselessly to try to achieve that. Had
we had such a resolution, it’s my judgement that Saddam would have started to
cooperate fully with the weapons’ inspectors, and war could probably have been
avoided. But the responsibility for the ‘undermining’ of the Security Council has to be
one which, in the circumstances, is shared by all members of the Council at the time.
[As the Report spells out, the aftermath was highly unsatisfactory. Fundamental to
this was the extraordinary, unilateral edict of the US Head of the Coalition Provisional
Authority, Paul (‘Gerry’) Bremer completely to disband Iraq’s army and other security
forces. This decision, whose consequences Iraq is still living with, not only blindsided
the British Government; it blindsided key members of the US Administration,

 including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the then Secretary of
State Colin Powell – and it seems the President himself. 1]
I am pleased that the Inquiry confirms in terms that “Cabinet was not misled” as to
what they were told, including at the key meeting on 17 th March 2003 which agreed
to recommend military action to the House of Commons, for decision the next day.
[Anything else??]

1 See No Higher Honor, Condi Rice, 2011, page 238 – “I was surprised when I
read in the newspaper on May 24 that the Iraqi military had been dissolved by
order of the US envoy.”