The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
Whether
military action was justified in law “with or without a second
resolution”
would
depend on the circumstances, which he could not
predict.
•
There was
“now a great emerging consensus” which recognised that
Saddam
Hussein had
“been in the most terrible breach of international obligations …
and
that the
time had come to require that awful, terrible regime to put right
those
breaches”.
•
There were
“no trip wires in the resolution”; the UK had “been extremely
careful
to ensure”
that there were none.
•
The UK was
working on the basis that Saddam Hussein was “a liar and a
cheat”.
•
He and
Mr Blair were aware “of the anxieties of the public … about
the prospect
of military
action”, and: “Military action should never be used except as a
last
resort when
all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
•
The UK
“would prefer to stay with the UN Security Council route” but
“must
reserve the
right, within our obligations under international law, to take
military
action if
we deem that necessary, outwith a specific Security Council
resolution
being
passed in the future”. The UN Charter, Security Council resolutions
and
customary
international law were the basis of international law, and
judgements
about
whether military action was “necessary and justified” had to be
made
on “that
totality”.
•
The
prospect of military action was seen “very much as a last resort”;
if the
resolution
was passed, the prospect of military action would
recede.
829.
Following a
series of discussions in New York on 7 November, the US
and
UK tabled a
revised draft resolution.
830.
An instruction
to the UK Mission in New York agreeing amendments to
the
draft text
was cleared with No.10 on the morning of 7
November.280
That
included an
amendment
to the text of OP4 to refer to OP11 “and” OP12, “while keeping ‘or’
in OP12”
to “leave
open the possibility of a member state, as well as Blix, making a
report to the
Council”.
831.
Mr Blair
discussed the resolution with President Putin on 7
November.281
832.
Mr Blair
said that he “hoped that, through this resolution and the
inspection regime,
the issue
of Iraq’s WMD could be resolved without conflict”. Mr Blair
and President Putin
also
discussed the issue of who under OP4 would establish the material
breach. Mr Blair
told
President Putin that if there were a breach by Iraq then we would
come back for
a further
discussion in the Security Council. Our expectation would be that
if there were
a
significant breach, the Security Council would authorise
action.
280
Fax
Ricketts to Rycroft, 7 November 2002, attaching Paper ‘Draft
telegram to UKMIS New York’.
281
Letter
Rycroft to McDonald, 7 November 2002, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
Conversation with Putin,
7 November’.
342