3.3 |
Development of UK strategy and options,
April to July 2002
288.
Mr Blair
responded to Mr Powell: “I agree with this
entirely”.119
289.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock warned of likely difficulties with the US and
others
in the
Security Council.
290.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock wrote that Mr Ricketts had asked for advice on
prospects
for Iraq at
the UN, including:
•
At what
point do you think that the Americans will begin to say publicly
that the
effort to
get UN inspectors back into Iraq is dead?
•
Will
we/other members of the Council be able to prolong the efforts
beyond that
with any
credibility?
•
Are
there any
prospects
for getting the Council to declare some sort of
ultimatum
that unless
Saddam lets the Inspectors in by X, the Council will conclude
Iraq
has no
intention of complying with its obligations (or some other formula
well
short of an
authorisation)?120
291.
In his
response of 19 July, Sir Jeremy Greenstock set out the “broad
dynamics”
in New
York to provide context:
•
There was a
lack of “vocal support … even on the lighter issues such
as
sanctions
machinery” for the UK policy of maintaining rigorous sanctions
and
the return
of weapons inspectors.
•
Russia and
China were opposed to unilateral military action and insisted on
the
UN route
but questioned the claims about Iraq’s holdings of WMD and
pushed
for “more
carrots” to be offered to Iraq.
•
There had
been some movement in the French position over the previous
year
but it was
still some distance from the UK’s.
•
Non-permanent
members of the Security Council would “go along with
the
emerging
majority”; most favoured continued political dialogue through the
UN,
opposed
military action, and were sceptical of the UK’s WMD
claims.
292.
Addressing Mr
Ricketts’ questions, Sir Jeremy advised:
•
The US
already planned to say that it saw “no value in talks at any
level”, and
that
scepticism would increasingly become public.
•
Mr Annan
was “likely to conclude” that he “should keep the way open for
further
technical
contacts” with Iraq, but there “should be no further talks at his
level
until Iraq
showed some flexibility”. The UK “could not credibly argue for
further
political
talks ourselves” as that would “pitch us directly against the
Americans”.
119
Manuscript
comment Blair on Minute Powell to Prime Minister, 19 July 2002,
‘Iraq’.
120
Letter
Greenstock to Ricketts, 19 July 2002, ‘Iraq at the
UN’.
51