3.5 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September to November 2002
–
the
negotiation of resolution 1441
the
resolution was that there wouldn’t have to be a further decision of
the Security
Council to
authorise the use of force.
“… the
other reason why it is odd is that we had been negotiating in New
York side
by side
with the US …
“… to have
reached the end of that and then have to turn round and tell
the
Americans
that ‘Actually, what you and we thought we were negotiating, we
haven’t
achieved at
all’, it is a very strange place to end up.”392
1039.
Asked if he
was completely unaware that the FCO Legal Adviser was
repeatedly
and very
clearly advising Mr Straw during and after the negotiation of
1441 that it did not
authorise
the use of force without a further resolution, Mr Macleod
replied:
“There are
minutes – on the file which I have seen subsequently, which in
hindsight
you could
see … the London legal view was diverging from the policy as we
thought
of it. But
I wasn’t really aware, to be honest, that there was such a
divergence
1040.
Mr Macleod
added that it was not until “towards the end of November” when
he
saw the
draft of the instructions asking Lord Goldsmith to advise that he
“really realised
that
something was not quite right here. I hadn’t really spotted it
before then, and
perhaps I
should have, but I hadn’t really.”
1041.
Addressing
what he described as “the legal advice beginning to diverge
from
where the
policy was”, Mr Macleod stated “Jeremy [Greenstock] and I both
thought that
it
[resolution 1441] did achieve that [the policy aim]”;
and:
“That
remains my view and, in the end that was the view the Attorney also
took. But
London, it
is clear certainly now, that wasn’t the view in [the FCO] Legal
Advisers.
The way to
fix that was actually relatively straightforward, which is to get a
view from
the
Attorney. I think it should have happened. Now, why it didn’t is
very difficult for
me to say
from where I was, but I think it is a big gap in the
process.”394
1042.
Asked
specifically if he was aware that Lord Goldsmith had advised
Mr Straw on
18 October
that the draft resolution would not in itself authorise force,
Mr Macleod said
he was not
aware of that advice.395
1043.
Pressed on the
implications, Mr Macleod stated that he should have been
aware
of the
advice, and that:
“… it would
have had an impact. There would have had to be some quite
serious
analysis
with London, but also with Washington, of where we were
going.
392
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, pages 16‑17.
393
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, pages 20‑21.
394
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, pages 21‑22.
395
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, pages 28‑30.
381