The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
93.
The Embassy
highlighted the scale of US scepticism about the
effectiveness
of weapons
inspectors and the concept of “narrower and deeper”
sanctions.55
Any
agreement
on easing sanctions would need to retain essential controls. The UK
should
persuade
the US to agree to elaborate those controls “now, in a package that
will bring
the P5 back
on board, and thus increase pressure on Saddam”.
Simultaneously
cracking
down on smuggling would “tighten sanctions and squeeze the
regime”.
That would
“require a lot of political will and creative solutions”, but would
show
that the UK
was serious.
94.
The FCO’s
briefing for Mr Cook stated that the objectives of the visit
were:
•
“to reach
broad UK/US agreement on a new joint approach and agree to
early
talks at
official level before an inter-agency approach has been agreed
in
Washington”;
and
•
“to
underline the importance of reaching P5 agreement on Iraq and
broadening
regional
support for UK/US policy.”56
“International
support for our approach is fading fast. Divisions in the P5 and
the
collapse of
the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process] have made key regional
allies
more
uncomfortable with our current policy. We are increasingly isolated
in the
EU. We are
held responsible for the suffering in Iraq, while memories of
Saddam’s
brutality
fade …
…
“Until
Saddam goes we need to work for sustainable containment,
focusing
on WMD,
through implementation of SCR 1284. This means a mixture of
stick
and carrot
…”
96.
On 5 February,
Mr Peter Westmacott, FCO Deputy Under Secretary (Wider
World),
sent Mr
Cook a paper on the UK’s policy objectives and the emerging US
position.57
Mr
Westmacott proposed that the UK’s aim should be to reach agreement
on a “new,
integrated
approach” which offered “additional lures to Iraq to comply with
[resolution]
1284”, but
also increased “the cost to the regime of not doing so”, while
“getting the
Security
Council back on the moral high ground”.
55
Telegram
121 Washington to FCO London, 3 February 2001, ‘Your Visit to
Washington: Iraq’; Telegram
117
Washington to FCO London, 1 February 2001, ‘Your Visit to
Washington: Iraq’.
56
Minute FCO
[junior official] to PS [FCO], 2 February 2001, ‘Iraq: Secretary of
State’s Visit to Washington:
5-7
February 2001’ attaching Brief FCO, [undated], ‘Iraq: Secretary of
State’s Visit to Washington:
5-7 February
2001’.
57
Minute
Westmacott to Private Secretary [FCO], 5 February 2001, ‘Visit to
Washington: Iraq’, attaching
Paper, 5
February 2001, ‘Iraq: Talking to the Americans’.
208