3.5 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September to November 2002
–
the
negotiation of resolution 1441
1052.
They
clearly set out the view of FCO Legal Advisers that the drafts of
the
resolution
then under discussion would not authorise the use of force
without
a further
decision by the Security Council.
1053.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock took the same position in a conversation
with
Ambassador
Negroponte on 16 October.
1054.
Mr Straw
took the same position in conversations with Secretary
Powell
and
Mr de Villepin on 16 and 17 October.
1055.
The Inquiry
has seen no evidence that the correspondence recording
the
concerns expressed by the FCO Legal Advisers and Lord Goldsmith
and
their
discussions with Mr Straw on 17‑18 October was sent to the UK
Mission
in New York.
1056.
Advice from
Mr Wood to Mr Straw was not sent to the UK
Mission
in New York
until 6 November.
1057.
In his
statement for the Inquiry, Sir Michael Wood wrote:
“… there
were occasions when written legal advice was copied directly to
UKMIS
New York.
This was the case, for example, with John Grainger’s minutes of 4
and
11 October
2002 and my submission … of 6 November 2002.”399
1058.
Sir Michael
wrote that, given the convention that neither the advice of the
Law
Officers
nor the fact that they had advised was to be disclosed, there was a
general
practice
that their advice should not be sent to posts
overseas.400
1059.
No copies of
the minutes expressing Mr Wood’s concerns at that time or
the
records of
the conversation between Lord Goldsmith and Mr Straw on 18
October
appear to
have been sent to the UK Mission in New York.
1060.
The FCO
instructions to the UK Mission issued on 21 October clearly
stated,
however,
that the draft could not “be read as authorising the use of force,
taking into
account the
draft resolution as a whole, including OP10, which gives a clear
indication
that
further action will be for the Council”.401
1061.
Mr Pattison
also told the Inquiry that by 6 November, when Mr Wood sent
his
advice to
Mr Straw, he “certainly understood” Mr Wood’s position
[that there would need
to be a
further decision by the Security Council to revive the
authorisation to use force
in resolution
678]; and that he had had that understanding “for some
time”.402
399
Statement,
15 March 2011, page 8.
400
Statement,
15 March 2011, page 9.
401
Telegram
602 FCO London to UKMIS New York, 21 October 2002, ‘Iraq: Draft
UNSCR’.
402
Public
hearing, 31 January 2011, page 31.
383