THE SECRET MEMO FROM BLAIR AIDE

RE: Prime minister’s visit to the Us, APRIL 5 – 7, 2002

FROM: DAVID MANNING (Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser)

TO: SIMON MCDONALD (Principal private secretary to foreign secretary Jack Straw)

DATE: APRIL 8, 2002

■ This letter is exceptionally sensitive and the PM instructed it should be very tightly held, it should be shown only to those with a real need to know.

No further copies should be made.

■ Bush said he and the PM had discussed Iraq over dinner the previous evening.

■ He [Bush] didn’t know who would take Saddam’s place if and when we toppled him.

But he didn’t much care. He was working on the assumption that anyone would be an improvement.

Nevertheless Bush accepted we needed to manage the PR with great care.

■ The PM said we needed an accompanying PR strategy that highlighted the risks of Saddam’s WMD programme and his appalling human rights record. Bush strongly agreed.

The PM said this approach would be important in managing European public opinion and in helping the President construct an international coalition.

■ The PM would emphasise to European partners that Saddam was being given an opportunity to co-operate.

If, as he expected, Saddam failed to do so, the Europeans would find it very much harder to resist the logic that we must take action to deal with an evil [regime] that threatens us with its WMD programme.