3.1 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 9/11 to early January
2002
35.
When Mr Blair
met President Bush at Camp David in late February 2001,
the
US and
UK agreed on the need for a policy which was more widely supported
in the
Middle East
region.19
Mr Blair
had concluded that public presentation needed to be
improved.
He suggested that the approach should be presented as a “deal”
comprising
four
elements:
•
do the
right thing by the Iraqi people, with whom we have no
quarrel;
•
tighten
weapons controls on Saddam;
•
retain
financial control on Saddam; and
•
retain our
ability to strike.
36.
The UK’s
thinking was set out in a paper proposing a new policy
framework,
circulated
by Mr John Sawers, Mr Blair’s Private Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, on
7 March
2001.20
That
comprised:
•
The pursuit
of a new sanctions regime to improve international support
and
incentivise
Iraq’s co-operation, narrowing and deepening the sanctions
regime
to focus
only on prohibited items and at the same time improving
financial
controls to
reduce the flow of illicit funds to Saddam Hussein, (so
called
“smarter
sanctions”).
•
A renewed
focus on human rights abuse by the Iraq regime; and a
“contract
with the
Iraqi people”, “setting out our goal of a peaceful law-abiding
Iraq,
fully
reintegrated into the international community, with its people free
to live
in a
society based on the rule of law, respect for human rights and
economic
freedom,
and without threat of repression, torture and arbitrary
arrest”.
•
The
continued operation of the No-Fly Zones, but with patrolling set at
levels
which would
minimise the risk to UK air crew.
•
Iraqi
compliance with resolution 1284 (1999). That would “remain one of
our
stated
objectives (and retaining some incentives for Iraq to comply would
be
necessary
to restore P5 [the five Permanent Members of the Security Council
–
China,
France, Russia, the UK and the US] unity)”.
37.
The paper also
stated that “the Iraqi regime’s record and behaviour made
it
impossible
for Iraq to meet the criteria for rejoining the international
community without
fundamental
change”.
38.
Mr Blair told
the Inquiry that one of the key elements of the policy was to seal
Iraq’s
borders to
make the sanctions regime more effective.21
19
Letter
Sawers to Cowper-Coles, 24 February 2001, ‘Prime Minister’s Talks
with President Bush,
Camp David,
23 February 2001’.
20
Letter
Sawers to Cowper-Coles, 7 March 2001, ‘Iraq: New Policy
Framework’.
21
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 15.
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