The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

“Therefore, the Resolution fully respects the competences of the Security Council in

the maintenance of international peace and security, in conformity with the Charter

of the United Nations.”286

854. Sir John Holmes told the Inquiry that President Chirac’s “overriding objective

throughout this period … was to prevent war with Iraq because he did not believe that

it was justified”.287

855. Sir John added that the wider French objectives were:

“… to get the inspectors back in, to make sure that there was going to be no

automaticity … [there] had to be a subsequent decision by the Security Council,

and there should be no hidden triggers in 1441, which would allow the Americans

and the British to claim that somehow they had legitimised military action when

they hadn’t.”288

856. Sir John was very clear that France had deliberately accepted ambiguity about the

need for a further decision by the Security Council:

“… if the language could have been more explicit about that they would have liked

that, but they accepted weaker language in the interests in the end of getting a

result, and I think the other objective they did share at that point was getting the

international community united about something, which of course 1441 did, however

temporarily, because everybody was on board and, therefore, they thought that

was a difficult negotiation, but a successful one, from their point of view, at the end

of the day.”289

857. Sir John stated:

“Well of course they [the French] knew what they were agreeing to, that there was

no actual decision to have a second resolution … their preference always was,

because the main concern was to avoid automaticity, therefore, the main concern

was to be sure that you had to go back to the Security Council. Now, what that

meant, whether it meant a resolution or not was perhaps less important to them,

which is why they conceded the language at the end of the day, than the fact that

you had to go back there and the fact that 1441 could not be considered of itself

as a sufficient legitimisation by the Security Council of military action … everybody

knew that this was ambiguous. This was the best language that could be achieved

in the circumstances … [but] it did leave a central area of doubt about what exactly

would happen should Saddam Hussein be determined to be in a further material

breach … they knew what they meant in their heads by that, and we knew what we

286 UN Security Council, Annex to Letter dated 8 November 2002 – ‘Joint statement by the People’s

Republic of China, France and the Russian Federation’ (S/2002/1236).

287 Public hearing, 29 June 2010, page 18.

288 Public hearing, 29 June 2010, pages 22‑23.

289 Public hearing, 29 June 2010, pages 23‑24.

352