3.4 |
Development of UK strategy and options, late July to 14 September
2002
97.
Lord Williams
added that he had used the summer to write a long note for
Mr Straw
on US
military actions since the Second World War, the position taken by
the UK
Government
on those actions, and the relevance to an invasion of Iraq,
concluding
with the
suggestion that, “if war in Iraq was to involve the UK it would be
strategic and
political
folly without UN authorisation”.
98.
The FCO was
unable to find a copy of the document for Lord Williams before
he
gave
evidence.
99.
Lord Williams
had advised Mr Straw that “while containment had successfully
boxed
in would be
aggressors, it has done nothing to stem the spread of weapons of
mass
destruction”.36
That had
been addressed through arms control treaties: it had been in
the
mutual
interest of both the US and the Soviet Union to reach such
agreements. It had
been “less
successful in dealing with ‘rogue states’ and … WMD” where there
were “no
mutual
interests between rogue states and the US”. Containment was “by
definition” an
“acceptance
of the status quo” and it was questionable whether that was
“acceptable
with regard
to WMD”. In his view, the “experience of North Korea” had taught
the Bush
Administration
“a bitter lesson it does not want to repeat with
Iraq”.
100.
The lessons
for Iraq to be drawn from history which Lord Williams had
offered
Mr Straw
were:
“With the
exception of Vietnam, the United States has always fought
alongside
substantial
Allied Forces. On most occasions since 1945 … it has done so
under
a UN
mandate. It is not unthinkable that the US could do so … against
Iraq.
A UN
mandate may not be so unattainable …
“The
advantage for the US of a UN mandate would be twofold. Firstly,
substantial
Allied
support would be likely … Secondly, most importantly, a UN mandate
will
be
essential for post war Iraq. It will simply not be possible for the
US to do this
alone … Experience
elsewhere … has underlined the necessity of UN
involvement
as the
mechanism indispensable for the marshalling of global, political
and
economic support
in the context of post war [re]construction.
“… ‘regime
change’ per se has seldom been a declared war aim.
Nevertheless,
it was
the declared war aim of the Allies from 1942 …
“In more
recent cases involving the UK, the defeat of Argentina in … 1982 …
led
to the
ousting of the junta … while the defeat of Serbia in … Kosovo … led
to the
overthrow
of Milošević within twelve months. Despicable though both regimes
were,
neither
were as brutal and totalitarian as … Saddam Hussein who survived
military
defeat in
1991 only through the exercise of extreme political coercion
domestically.
This … made
it unlikely short of Saddam’s death that his regime could
change
36
Minute
Williams to Secretary of State [FCO], 19 August 2002, ‘The United
States and Iraq: Historical
Parallels’.
111