appointed EU Director in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and then, in 2011, he became Chief Operating Officer. He became Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York in April 2015. Downing Street memo Rycroft's name became familiar to the general public as the author of a secret memo to the British Ambassador to the United States, David Manning, summarizing a 23 July 2002 meeting with Blair and other government officials "to discuss Iraq". The memo was leaked to The Sunday Times, which printed it on 1 May 2005. The memo includes discussion of a "shift of attitude" in the Bush administration which made it appear that at this point, while the public was still being told that Iraq could avoid an invasion by agreeing to abide by UN resolutions, Military action was now seen as inevitable. Furthermore, the memo went on to state, Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. bolstering the assertions of opponents of Bush and Blair that the invasion had been decided a priori, the intelligence to support the invasion had been slanted towards that purpose, and that there had been insufficient planning for the aftermath. This was even more explicitly stated elsewhere in the memo, The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. Permanent Secretary at DFID and HO Rycroft was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development with effect from January 2018. Rycroft replaced Mark Lowcock who ran the department from 2011. He was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Home Office in March 2020 following the resignation of Sir Philip Rutnam. Rycroft was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to British diplomacy, development and domestic policy. References External links RYCROFT, Matthew John,