The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
284.
On 4 May, Mr
Cook wrote to Mr Blair reporting that:
“We have
made good progress on the review of sanctions, with UK/US now
in
agreement
on a new approach with the objective of turning the focus away
from
sanctions
and onto controls on WMD. Work is in hand to tie down the detail
and
build up
support in the region and in the P5, but we need to move quickly if
we are
to meet our
deadline of 4 June, the date of the next ‘Oil-for-Food’
resolution.”152
285.
Mr Cook
reported on the debate within the US Administration.
286.
Mr Cook
detailed the progress that had been made on sanctions:
“… we have
now persuaded the US that, while the UN will continue to control
Iraq’s
oil
revenue, procedures should be adjusted so that only contracts
containing items
on an
agreed list of controlled goods require scrutiny by the Sanctions
Committee.
This
relaxation of UN controls will be balanced by new measures to
reduce
sanctions-breaking
and tighten up on dual-use goods. The new approach will
reduce
the role of
the UN, enable the US to vastly reduce the number of contracts on
hold,
and allow
us to deflect responsibility for the humanitarian situation away
from us and
on to the
Iraqi government. At the same time, by reducing the regime’s access
to
hard cash,
it will reduce Iraq’s room for manoeuvre.”
287.
Progress on
confirming arrangements with “front-line states” to reduce
oil
smuggling
had been “slow”.
288.
There had been
“less progress” on the US review of operations in the
NFZs.
Mr Cook
advised that:
“I believe
we should look again at options for reducing patrols in the
southern NFZ,
or even
ending them. The legal difficulties remain, and I am also concerned
that
operations
in the southern NFZ will undo the advances we achieve through
making
changes on
sanctions and undermine hard won P5 and regional backing for
our
new
approach.”
289.
On regime
change, Mr Cook reported that: “No one in the [US]
Administration
believes
they can deliver Saddam’s overthrow”. The UK’s ‘Contract with the
Iraqi
People’
fell short of calling for Saddam Hussein’s departure but set out
the steps that
the
international community would take to restore and rehabilitate Iraq
in the event of his
departure.
As regime change moved up the US agenda, the UK should encourage
the
US to “sign
up to this more credible and defensible approach”. There might soon
be an
opportunity
to garner wider international support for the idea of the contract,
capitalising
on Iraq’s
mishandling of the recent Arab Summit.
152
Minute Cook
to Prime Minister, 4 May 2001, ‘Iraq: US/UK Policy
Review’.
246