3.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, January to April 2002 –
“axis of evil” to Crawford
478.
There is no
No.10 record of that discussion.
479.
Mr Straw told
the Inquiry that his recommendation was:
“… not a
route of regime change … [but] not containment.
“Of course
there was debate about whether we should just put up with
containment,
but the
problem with just putting up with containment, not withstanding
[resolution]
1409
[adopted in May 2002] was that it wasn’t going anywhere …
Meanwhile, the
perception
of the risk had completely changed …”169
480.
Asked if the
messages to the US Administration before 25 March that the UK
was
prepared to
be part of a coalition pursuing regime change had pre-empted his
advice,
Mr Straw
told the Inquiry that his minute to Mr Blair was part of the debate
in the UK
Government.170
Part of
that was how to handle the US.
481.
Mr Straw added
that the UK had succeeded in achieving its policy objective
when
the US was
persuaded to go down the UN route “for the sole purpose, not of
regime
change, but
of dealing with, ‘The threat posed by Iraq to international peace
and
security’”.
482.
In a
conversation with Secretary Powell, on 25 March, Mr Straw was
reported to
have
described the political situation in the UK as:
“…
generally ‘twitchy’, mostly for domestic reasons. Everyone accepted
the case
against
Iraq but not everyone acknowledged that post-11 September, our
tolerance
of threats
to security had reduced. He explained the need for military
action,
should it
take place later in the year, to be clearly within international
law, even if
not
explicitly endorsed by UNSCRs. He understood American impatience
with our
approach …
There would be a real problem if the objective of military action
were
regime
change. The Foreign Secretary felt entirely comfortable making a
case
for
military action to deal with Iraq’s WMD and could even say that the
means of
meeting
those concerns might be regime change, but this could not be the
objective.
Politically
we needed a strategy to swing parliamentary, public and European
opinion
behind
whatever course of action we took.”171
483.
When he saw
the record of the conversation with Secretary Powell, Mr
Wood
reminded Mr
Straw that a further decision by the Security Council was likely to
be
needed to
revive the authorisation to use force in Iraq.172
169
Public
hearing, 21 January 2010, pages 17-18.
170
Public
hearing, 21 January 2010, pages 20-21.
171
Telegram
194 FCO London to Washington, 25 March 2002, ‘Iraq: Foreign
Secretary’s Conversation
with Colin
Powell 25 March 2002’.
172
Minute Wood
to Private Secretary [FCO], 26 March 2002, ‘Iraq’.
473