3.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, January to April 2002 –
“axis of evil” to Crawford
action
against Iraq was strong. A CNN
poll
earlier that week had shown 70 percent were
in favour
of military action.
406.
Sir
Christopher also reported that in discussions between the Foreign
Affairs
Committee
and a range of contacts in the US about “the need to make a solid
case to
Europeans
and others, the consensus response was that once the US showed it
was
serious,
other countries would come on board. But, equally, there was no
sense that
serious
military is action is imminent.”
407.
The FCO
paper on the Iraqi opposition concluded that regime change led
by
the
external opposition was not a viable option and the most realistic
successor
to Saddam
Hussein would be a senior Sunni military or ex-military
figure.
408.
The FCO
explained that the provisions of resolution 1284 were
ambiguous
because the
P5 had been unable to reach agreement in 1999, and there had
been
no progress
on clarification since.
409.
There would
be difficulties with securing agreement from Iraq, the US
and
Russia on
its implementation. The US could seek to raise the barrier for
Iraqi
compliance;
Russia was likely to take the opposite view. France might support
the
UK because
it saw agreement on a tough inspection regime as the only
realistic
alternative
to US military action.
410.
On 15 March,
in response to Mr Blair’s request for further advice following
his
meeting
with Vice President Cheney on 11 March, the FCO sent Sir David
Manning a
Research
Analysts’ paper on the opposition and a separate note summarising
the history
of attempts
to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.148
411.
The FCO
Research Analysts’ paper on the nature and role of the
opposition
to Saddam
Hussein stated that the UK’s “ability to influence and/or direct
the Iraqi
opposition”
was “reliant on contacts with the external Iraqi community, while
the internal
opposition
remains closed to us”.149
The paper
described the internal and external
opposition.
412.
The Research
Analysts concluded:
“Various
opposition groups … have told us of plans involving a national
liberation
movement in
which Iraqis, backed from the outside, would launch a series of
attacks
148
Letter
McDonald to Manning, 15 March 2002, ‘Iraq’.
149
Paper
Research Analysts [FCO], 14 March 2002, ‘Iraq: The Nature and Role
of the Opposition to
Saddam
Hussein’.
459