The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Iraq, but
ignoring Israel’s failure to implement resolutions demanding that
it leave
the occupied
Palestinian territories.”16
45.
Other points
made by Mr Ross in his statement included:
•
“… it was
not our view in New York that containment was collapsing
either
through the
ineffectiveness of sanctions or the deterioration of
international
support.
While there were serious sanctions breaches, it was not the
UK
judgement
that these permitted significant rearmament, which was our
major
concern
…”;
•
“… the
collapse of effective sanctions was not a foregone conclusion, as
some
witnesses
have misleadingly suggested … we undertook … sustained
and
detailed
work … to end Iraq’s manipulation of the official price of its oil
exports,
so that it
could extract an illegal ‘surcharge’ …”; and
•
“… the UK
never made any co-ordinated and sustained attempt to
address
sanctions
busting.”
46.
Mr Ross
subsequently told the Inquiry:
•
“It
[containment] was a continuing state, and … to maintain containment
you
had to
constantly adjust it.17
•
“… It is
astonishing to me … that neither the US nor the UK did anything
about
Saddam’s
illegal bank accounts which we knew to exist in
Jordan.18
•
“Nobody
questioned at all in the Security Council that the arms embargo
should
be lifted.
I don’t think there was a single country that said at any point we
should
let Iraq
import arms again. I think the question was: what kind of controls,
short
of that, do
we really need to make sure that Iraq’s WMD is controlled
…”19
47.
Asked about
pursuing resolution 1409 while the Bush Administration was
planning
regime
change, Sir Jeremy Greenstock told the Inquiry:
“It was
entirely natural to me that we should try and maximise containment
of Iraq
because I
didn’t see an alternative … So it was very welcome that we had a
smart
sanctions
regime in [resolution] 1409, although that didn’t mean … that there
weren’t
other
aspects of policy on Iraq that needed to be followed
up.
“We needed
to curtail smuggling, which was increasing through Jordan, Syria
and
Turkey, and
which Secretary Powell had not expended a huge amount of effort
on
behalf of
his Administration to close from early 2001 onwards, which
surprised me.”20
16
Statement,
12 July 2010, pages 1-5.
17
Public
hearing, 12 July 2010, page 12.
18
Public
hearing, 12 July 2010, page 17.
19
Public
hearing, 12 July 2010, page 44.
20
Public
hearing, 27 November 2009, pages 23-24.
12