3.5 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September to November 2002
–
the
negotiation of resolution 1441
UN route”.
Mr Straw had also said that France was making clear it would
not support
war at all,
China “didn’t care, and Russia was playing
hardball”.112
332.
Mr Campbell
wrote that the US “wanted one resolution that would allow them to
hit
Iraq at the
first sign of Saddam lying or causing trouble”. Mr Blair had
described his first
conversation
with President Bush as “difficult”. President Bush was “beginning
to wonder
whether we
are going down the right road”. Mr Campbell wrote that the US
was “getting
more and
more impatient”.
333.
Mr Campbell
also wrote that President Clinton’s references to Iraq in his
speech
to the
Labour Party Conference were intended to convey the view that
Mr Blair “was
in a
position to influence US policy” and to get President Bush “to side
with [Secretary]
Powell”.
But Mr Blair was “less confident we could get the tough
resolution we wanted”.
President
Bush had told Mr Blair that he was “having trouble holding on
to my horse”.
Mr Campbell
wrote it was clear that President Bush was trying to get
Mr Blair “to agree
that if
Saddam was found to be lying that was a ‘casus
belli’ ”.
334.
Following the
second conversation between Mr Blair and President
Bush,
Mr Campbell
wrote that Mr Blair was concerned that rhetoric aimed at
managing the
Republican
right wing would stop President Bush getting to the right policy
positions;
and that
Mr Blair “seemed to be moving to the view that this [the US
Administration]
was a
government that was ruthless about its own power and
position”.
335.
In his memoir,
Mr Straw wrote that in his first conversation with President
Bush,
Mr Blair’s
mind was on the Labour Party Conference and he:
“… simply
didn’t make the key points. I told him that, however
embarrassing,
he’d have
to make the call again. It was fixed for later that
evening.”113
336.
Mr Straw
wrote that the second call:
“… went
well. We had a text to broker with the other members of the
Security
Council.
“There then
followed an extraordinary five‑week period in which not just
every
phrase, but
every word, and even the punctuation, was the subject of the
closest
debate and
argument. I often spent hours each day in telephone calls with
Colin
[Powell]
and Dominique de Villepin and Igor Ivanov, as well as with the
Chinese
foreign
minister, Tang Jiaxuan and the foreign Ministers of the
non‑permanent
members of
the Security Council.”
112
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to Iraq.
Hutchinson,
2012.
113
Straw
J. Last Man
Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor. Macmillan,
2012.
259