SCOOP EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a transcript of another document leaked to the media concerning the build up to
the Iraq war. It concerns a discussion in early 2002 between the UK Ambassador to the US and then Deputy Defence
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Importantly the following document appears to confirm the thrust of the allegations made concerning the so-called "Downing Street Memo", namely that the Bush Administration had already made up its mind to go to war against Iraq before it began the
diplomatic offensive in the second half of 2002.
The transcript that follows was transcribed by a member of the Democratic Underground forums from the PDF version posted online. Some of the typos are from the original. Emphasis has been added to key passages.
– Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
British Embassy Washington
From the Ambassador
Christopher Meyer KCMG
18 March 2002
Sir David Manning KCMG
No 10 Downing Street
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: CONVERSATION WITH WOLFOWITZ
1 Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, came to Sunday lunch on 17 March.
2 On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week, We backed regime
change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe.
The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building
support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs and the critical importance of the MEPP as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be
accomplished skilfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board.
3 I said that the UK was giving serious thought to publishing a paper that would make the case against Saddam. If the UK
were to join with the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have to be able to take a critical mass of
parliamentary and public opinion with us. It was extraordinary how people had forgotten how bad he was.
4 Wolfowitz said that he fully agreed. He took a slightly different position from others in the Administration, who were
focussed on Saddam's capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. The WMD danger was of course crucial to the public
case against Saddam, particularly the potential linkage to terrorism. But Wolfowitz thought it indispensable to spell
out in detail Saddam's barbarism. This was well documented from what he had done during the occupation of Kuwait, the
incursion into Kurdish territory, the assault on the Marsh Arabs, and to his own people. A lot of work had been done on
this towards the end of the first Bush administration. Wolfowitz thought that this would go a long way to destroying any
notion of moral equivalence between Iraq and Israel. I said that I had been forcefully struck, when addressing
university audiences in the US how ready students were to gloss over Saddam's crimes and to blame the US and the UK for
the suffering of the Iraqi people.
5 Wolfowitz said that it was absurd to deny the link between terrorism and Saddam. There might be doubt about the
alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked,
know anything more about this meeting?). But there were other substantiated cases of Saddam giving comfort to
terrorists, including someone involved in the first attack on the World Trade Center (the latest New Yorker apparently
has a story about links between Saddam and Al Qaeda operating in Kurdistan).
6 I asked for Wolfowitz's take on the stuggle inside the Administration between the pro- and anti- INC lobbies (well
documented in Sy Hersh's recent New Yorker piece, which I gave you). He said that he found himself between the two sides
(but as the conversation developed, it became clear that Wolfowitz was far more pro-INC than not). He said that he was
strongly opposed to what some were advocating: a coalition including all outside factions except the INC (INA, KDP, PUK,
SCIRI). This would not work. Hostility towards the INC was in reality hostility towards Chalabi. It was true that
Chalabi was not the easiest person to work with. Bute had a good record in bringing high-grade defectors out of Iraq.
The CIA stubbornly refused to recognise this. They unreasonably denigrated the INC because of their fixation with
Chalabi. When I mentioned that the INC was penetraded by Iraqi intelligence, Wolfowitz commented that this was probably
the case with all the opposition groups: it was something we would have to live with. As to the Kurds, it was true that
they were living well (another point to be made in any public dossier on Saddam) and that they feared provoking an
incursion by Baghdad, But there were good people among the Kurds, including in particular Salih (?) of the PUK.
Wolfowitz brushed over my reference to the absence of SUnni in the INC: there was a big difference between Iraqi and
Iranian Shia. The former just wanted to be rid of Saddam.
7 Wolvowitz was pretty dismissive of the desirability of a military coup and of the defector generals in the wings. The
latter had blood on their hands. The important thing was to try to have Saddam replaced by something like a functioning
democracy. Though imperfect, the Kurdish model was not bad. How to achieve this, I asked? Only through a coalition of
all the parties was the answer (we did not get into military planning).
ENDS