3.5 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September to November 2002
–
the
negotiation of resolution 1441
1.
This Section
addresses the negotiation of resolution 1441 following President
Bush’s
speech to
the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 12 September, including
the
provision
of legal advice, and the unanimous adoption of the resolution by
the Security
Council on
8 November
2.
There were a
number of other key developments during this period which
are
addressed
elsewhere in the Report:
•
The Joint
Intelligence Committee (JIC) Assessments of Iraq’s weapons of
mass
destruction
(WMD) capabilities and Iraq’s intentions for their use are set out
in
Section 4.
The production of the Iraq dossier, published on 24 September
2002,
and the
presentation of its contents to Parliament are addressed in Section
4.2.
The
subsequent assessments of Iraq’s actions, including its attitude
towards the
return of
weapons inspectors, are addressed in Section 4.3.
•
The
development of options for a possible UK contribution to a US‑led
military
invasion of
Iraq, and the decision on 31 October to offer ground forces to the
US
for
planning purposes, are addressed in Section 6.1.
•
UK planning
for a post‑Saddam Hussein Iraq is addressed in Section
6.4.
3.
The discussion
within the UK Government after the adoption of resolution 1441
about
the legal
effect of the resolution, and Lord Goldsmith’s advice on that issue
and the legal
basis for
military action in Iraq, are addressed in Section 5.
•
The declared
objective of the US and UK was to obtain international support
within
the
framework of the UN for a strategy of coercive diplomacy for the
disarmament
of Iraq.
For the UK, regime change was a means to achieve disarmament,
not an
objective
in its own right.
•
The
negotiation of resolution 1441 reflected a broad consensus in the
UN Security
Council on
the need to achieve the disarmament of Iraq.
•
To secure
consensus in the Security Council despite the different positions
of
the US and
France and Russia, resolution 1441 was a compromise
containing
drafting
“fixes”.
•
That created
deliberate ambiguities on a number of key issues including: the
level
of
non‑compliance with resolution 1441 which would constitute a
material breach;
by whom
that determination would be made; and whether there would be a
second
resolution
explicitly authorising the use of force.
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