An impossible decision

IT is impossible to travel back in time, but the days leading up to March 18, 2003, when a decision had to be made, still stick in the mind.

The US, angered by the recent 9/11 terrorist atrocity and led by a dogmatic president, was going to invade Iraq. The UN, which could have given the invasion watertight legality or could have provided an alternative, had frozen, unable to make any decision, unable even to back up its own resolutions.

The tyrant, Saddam Hussein, who had an appalling record of abusing his own people was playing with the weapons inspectors, buying time even though there was a suggestion that he could threaten Britain imminently – a Cabinet minister came into The Northern Echo’s Darlington office during those fraught days to say that the intelligence was credible that weapons of mass destruction could be deployed against us within 45 minutes.

So a decision had to be made.

But it was not a clean cut decision. There were 1.5m on the streets of London, marching against the war, showing the scepticism of the British people who had been fed a dodgy dossier of evidence largely lifted off the internet, who had been unable to make the link between the terrorists of al Qaeda and Saddam, who had not been convinced that the 45 minute threat was real, who felt that the inspectors and the UN could be given more time.

And then there were those who thought that war was never the answer.

But, with the troops in place, a decision had to be made.

The one Tony Blair took has defined his reputation. It was, he said yesterday, “the hardest, most momentous, most agonising” decision of his premiership, and judging by his performance yesterday, it still haunts him. Little wonder, as that decision cost the lives of 179 British soldiers and countless thousands of Iraqi civilians.

The Chilcot report didn’t have to make a decision about going to war, but it did criticise the reasons and the way Mr Blair made his decision. The report said the legal basis for the war was far from satisfactory, the WMD threat was presented with unjustified certainty, peaceful options had not been exhausted, the post-invasion plans were wholly inadequate, the army was ill-equipped.

Even though hindsight is easy, these criticisms cannot be easily dismissed.

How could we go to war without rigorously testing the intelligence? How could we go to war without planning for every post-conflict possibility? How could we send our troops to war without the best possible equipment?

But for all the criticisms of the processes by which Mr Blair made the decision, and for all the criticisms of the way the decision was implemented, Chilcot falls short of concluding that the decision itself was wrong. In fact, it says that once diplomacy had unravelled further, military action might have become necessary.

Chilcot isn’t a whitewash. It gives plenty of ammunition – far more than expected – to Mr Blair’s critics, of which the number will grow.

But it doesn’t confront the central decision that has to be taken by a lonely leader: at this moment, in these circumstances, is it right for Britain to intervene militarily?

In August 2013, David Cameron thought it was right for Britain to intervene in Syria, to remove a dictator and free the people. Parliament blocked him. The result is that Assad is still in place, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, the terrorist threat has increased and Europe is awash with refugees.

Back in March 2003, Mr Blair persuaded Parliament that it was right to remove a dictator from Iraq and free the people. The result is that Saddam was removed, 179 British troops died along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the terrorist threat increased and Europe is awash with refugees.

Mr Blair stands by the decision he made at that moment. He still believes he was right. He cannot let his certainty waver or his whole being would implode, but he must know that with 250 civilians lying dead in Baghdad after the worst bombing at the weekend, he sounds ridiculous when he says that “Iraq did not stand a chance under Saddam, but it does now”.

For all the reasons enumerated by Chilcot, it was a disastrous decision. He allied himself to George Bush’s rush to invade – the chummy words “with you, whatever” will remain with him forever. His use of flawed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction broke the bond of trust between Prime Minister and people. His intervention cost British lives and failed to leave Iraq or the region a safer, better place.

But much of that is with hindsight. If time travel were possible back to the febrile days of March 2003, when the UN had collapsed and the US was going in irrespective of whether the UK was alongside it, we could recall that it was an impossible decision.