1.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September 2000 to September
2001
130.
The detailed
work on whether there were alternative means of achieving
UK
objectives
in the NFZs, which had been undertaken in early 2000 and endorsed
by
Ministers
(see Section 1.1), had concluded that regular patrols of the
NFZs:
“… afforded
the most effective means of performing the mission at the lowest
risk.
Work
conducted in the context of the current review exercise has
indicated that in
relation to
the south this remains the case.”
131.
There might be
scope for adjustment in the north but the “full implications” of
the
options for
that would “require further study”. Human rights monitors might
provide a
means to
monitor the situation on the ground. Successive resolutions had
called on Iraq
to allow
them entry but Iraq had refused. Mr Patey advised:
“In the
longer term the best guarantee against attacks on the civilian
population is a
change of
regime and the establishment of a democratic government … It is
difficult,
however, to
envisage measures which directly lead to the overthrow of the
current
regime
which would also be consistent with international or domestic
law.”
132.
It was
“extremely difficult to verify” Iraqi claims that civilians had
been killed or
injured as
a result of coalition action in either NFZ. The UK could not “make
any sensible
estimate of
the number of people … who have been killed or injured as a result
of
coalition
action in self-defence since January 1999. What we do know is that
the vast
majority of
Iraqi claims are spurious, and that the actual number of civilians
who have
been
affected by coalition action is likely to be very much smaller than
Baghdad would
have the
world believe.”
133.
There was
nothing to alter the JIC Assessment of 13 December 2000.
Officials
were
looking separately at whether there might be a justification for
the existence of the
southern
NFZ in terms of the defence of Kuwait.
134.
US
proposals for a response to Iraqi military activity against
aircraft
patrolling
the southern NFZ highlighted the urgency of resolving the legal
basis
for the
NFZs.
135.
On 30 January,
an FCO official invited Mr Cook to agree that the RAF
should
participate
in a US-led attack on five targets north of the 33rd parallel,
outside the
southern
NFZ, and a further target within the southern NFZ.77
UK aircraft
were to attack
the target
within the NFZ and provide cover for US aircraft involved in the
attacks further
north. A UK
tanker would be used to refuel US aircraft.
136.
The official
reported the MOD’s assessment: improvements to the Iraqi
air-defence
system
(IADS), to provide secure links between early warning radars
outside the
southern
NFZ and missile and anti-aircraft artillery batteries within the
NFZ, could
77
Minute FCO
[junior official] to PS [FCO], 30 January 2001, ‘Iraq: No Fly
Zones; Proposed RO 4’.
215