The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
635.
Vice President
Cheney made a number of points, including:
•
A French
veto “wouldn’t hurt one bit in the States”.
•
Secretary
Powell had felt “bushwhacked” at the meeting of the Security
Council
on 20
January, and the position of Germany was “increasingly
fragile”.
•
The US
Administration “had not yet figured out next steps”, which
would
“to some
extent” depend on what happened on 27 January.
•
It “would
clearly be preferable to get a second resolution”. There was a
“sense
in the US
that a process was unfolding”, “But there was no prospect of
the
inspectors
working properly unless the party inspected was willing. The
burden
of proof
was on the Iraqis and they were not delivering.”
•
There was
“a timing problem. The idea that we could let it drift through
months
of discussion
was not on. Troops were already in place. The weather was
a
factor … If
we backed off now, or sat there for months, the Saudis and
others
would back
off. It would be one more example of bold talk and no action.
We
would never
get them gingered up for action again.”
•
President
Bush “could not let a charade continue at the UN”; and he “could
not
let France
and Germany dictate policy”. He would have thought France had
“a
vested
interest … in preserving the status of the Security Council”, but
“Instead,
they were
allowing the Council to be a place not of action but of
restraining
legitimate
US action.”
•
Once
military operations started, “the Iraqi regime was likely to fall
apart quickly”:
“Iraqis
would reveal all the WMD now hidden away.”
•
The US
Administration “had not yet resolved” whether it wanted a second
vote
or
not.
636.
At the end of
the meeting, Mr Straw:
“…
discussed the Kosovo model and its limitations. The tactics of
tabling a text in the
knowledge
of a likely veto were very delicate. But we might also face the
situation
where
France or Germany tabled a resolution to give the inspectors more
time.
We would
have to veto but that would put us on the back foot. Last autumn,
the
knowledge
that the US and UK had a text in play had deterred others from
tabling an
alternative
[...] …”
637.
Mr Straw’s
comments on proceeding with military action if the UK tried
and
failed to
obtain a second resolution prompted Mr Wood to write to
Mr Straw.216
That
correspondence
and Lord Goldsmith’s subsequent correspondence with
Mr Straw are
addressed
in Section 5.
216
Minute Wood
to PS [FCO], 24 January 2003, ‘Iraq: Legal Position’.
112