The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
715.
The following
day there was a major disagreement between President Chirac
and
Mr Blair
over reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Mr Campbell
wrote in his diaries
that:
“They had
also had some pretty fiery exchanges on Iraq, TB telling him
[President
Chirac]
that the US were going to do it so it depended [on whether] he
wanted to
be part
of the equation or not.”243
716.
Discussions
between Mr Straw and other Foreign Ministers and between Sir
David
Manning and
Dr Rice, including on French ideas on the detailed text,
continued.
717.
Reporting
discussions with a wide range of colleagues in New York, Sir
Jeremy
Greenstock
said he had told Ambassador Negroponte that there was a case for
putting
the US/UK
text into near final form (“into the blue”) on 25 October, to
pre‑empt possible
alternative
texts being tabled by France or Russia. “Doing so would show that
we were
serious
about not wasting time.”244
718.
Ambassador
Negroponte agreed. The three compromise changes discussed
with
the UK on
23 October “were getting nowhere in Washington”: “The main
stumbling block
was State
Department lawyers.”
719.
Sir Jeremy
stated that, as he saw the UK’s position, “we had no fear of a
second
stage
Council discussion. We would not be bound if, at that stage, the
Council funked its
responsibilities.”
He “did not understand why the US lawyers were frightened. This
would
simply mean
taking the process to that point.” Sir Jeremy “asked if UK pressure
would
help”. He
also suggested amending OP11 to require Dr Blix to report “any
systematic
interference”,
rather than “any interference”.
720.
Sir Jeremy
reported that Ambassador Negroponte had also said Mr Lavrov
had told
him he had
been instructed to make clear that the draft resolution was
“unacceptable”
and “Russia
would veto”.
721.
Sir Jeremy
commented:
“The
tactical manoeuvring is now getting sharp. Lavrov’s veto threat is
presumably
agreed by
Putin. My instinct is to regard this as hard negotiating … they
[the
Russians]
would not veto on their own. But it makes clear that, whatever
further
concessions
are squeezed out of the Washington system, the Russians will
not
vote positively.
…
“The French
text … is actually not bad from a UK point of view. We shall have
to see
what
Washington makes of it. My guess is that there is probably one more
round of
243
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
244
Telegram
2042 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 25 October 2002, ‘Iraq:
Discussions on 24 October’.
326