The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
like
“serious consequences”. Any member of the Security Council would be
free
to bring
the issue back to the UN.
•
Casting
OP10 in terms of a stark warning that the Iraqis must comply with
the
resolution
but without specifying what would follow if they did
not.
•
Putting the
“all necessary means” provision into a second
resolution.100
“There
should be no difficulty if Blix [Dr Hans Blix, Executive
Chairman of UNMOVIC]
notified
the Council that Saddam was in breach. It might be more difficult
if there
were a
series of low level skirmishes between Blix and the Iraqi
authorities that we
interpreted
as obstruction but that the French or others tried to interpret
differently.
In that
event, we should have to be very clear and very
tough.”
301.
Mr Blair
and President Bush were to discuss the issue the following day. Sir
David
asked the
FCO for advice.
302.
Mr Straw
spoke to Secretary Powell at 12.30pm on 2 October and talked
him
through
proposed language for “the ‘one and a half’ resolutions” they had
discussed.101
303.
Mr Straw’s
Private Office subsequently advised Sir David Manning
that:
•
The US and
UK were focusing in the P5 in New York on the
arrangements
for
inspections in OP5, which would leave “time for the Prime Minister
and
President
Bush to discuss the most politically difficult point, the
consequences
of non‑compliance,
in OP10”.
•
It was
clear that “both the French and the Russians” would “insist that
the
Council
must take a second decision before the use of force is
authorised”.
•
Mr Straw
and Secretary Powell had “therefore agreed to look at an
alternative
two stage
approach”, which Mr Blair and Mr Straw had “always seen …
as a
possible
approach to achieving our overriding objective of getting the
inspectors
in to
tackle the disarmament of Iraqi WMD”.
•
That “would
involve a first resolution establishing a tough inspections regime
and
sending a
strong signal of the Council’s willingness to authorise the use of
force
in the
event of Iraqi non‑co-operation”.
•
There
“would be a private side agreement committing the
French/Russians
to agree
the adoption of a short second resolution authorising the use of
force
in the
event of clear Iraqi violations”.
•
To address
French and Russian concerns that OP10 as drafted could
authorise
the use of
force on a trivial pretext, it would be redrafted to “drop the
prior
determination
that any violation constituted a material breach and the
prior
authorisation”
for the use of “all necessary means”.
100
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 1 October 2002, ‘Iraq: Conversation with Condi
Rice’.
101
Letter
McDonald to Manning, 2 October 2002, ‘Iraq’.
254