A member of the Iraq Inquiry panel disclosed today that he had written significant portions of a major speech on military intervention made by Tony Blair.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, a military historian, wrote to Sir John Chilcot, the chairman of the inquiry, explaining that he had drafted sections of a key address, given in Chicago in April 1999, that has been referred to frequently during the hearings. In it, he set out the case for military action in dealing with dictators including Saddam Hussein.
Changes in Mr Blair’s approach to Iraq have been one of the main issues of contention during Sir John’s hearings. On several occasions, the evidence has centred on whether Mr Blair’s public pronouncements changed after a private meeting with President Bush at his Crawford ranch in April 2002.
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the US, told the panel that a speech made the day after the Crawford meeting showed a significant “tightening” of policy. Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s chief of staff, and Alastair Campbell, the No.10 director of communications, have both rejected that hypothesis by citing the Chicago speech.
The bulk of the Chicago speech concerned military intervention in Kosovo but the section written by Sir Lawrence compared Slobodan Milosevic to Saddam Hussein saying the “two dangerous and ruthless men” had caused “many of our problems”.
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The historian argued that intervention in Kosovo without a United Nations mandate must succeed in order to safeguard the effectiveness of the UN, which was often constrained by the Security Council’s unwillingness to support military action.
“There are differences among the permanent members on the use of force,” he wrote. “These differences, however, have also been evident on Iraq and so go beyond this particular conflict to a worrying breakdown of trust on a number of questions. There is a risk if this goes on of a return to the same sort of deadlock that undermined the effectiveness of the Security Council during the cold war.”
Sir Lawrence, who is professor of war studies at King’s College London, made the contribution in a memo to Mr Powell who appeared before the inquiry today. He said Mr Powell asked him to submit ideas for the speech on April 12, 1999 and he responded four days later.
The historian’s memo, entitled “Chicago speech: some suggestions”, formed the basis for the key section of Mr Blair’s address to the Economic Club of Chicago on the “Doctrine of the international community”. It listed the five tests for humanitarian intervention written by Sir Lawrence: “Are we sure of our case? Have we exhausted all diplomatic options? Are there military operations that we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Are we prepared for the long term? Do we have national interests involved?”
In a letter to Sir John this morning, Sir Lawrence wrote: “I thought it would be helpful to set out, for the record, my involvement in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s speech. . . It is important to note that this was in the context of the Kosovo conflict.”
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Mr Blair will appear as a witness to the inquiry on January 29.