3.6 |
Development of UK strategy and options, November 2002 to January
2003
638.
On a flight
from Washington on 23 January, Mr Ricketts, gave Mr Straw
an outline
of a
strategy which Mr Blair could put to President
Bush.217
639.
The key
messages were that the strategy was working, but it needed more
time.
That would
have three strategic advantages:
•
The
military build‑up was “already producing signs of fracturing in the
regime …
We might be
able to achieve our objectives without firing a shot”;
•
Inspections
“were beginning to produce results”.
•
The UK was
working with “moderate Arabs” to “get Saddam out using
the
leverage of
a second resolution”.
640.
Mr Ricketts
stated that:
•
In the
present circumstances, it was clear that there would not be the
nine votes
in the
Security Council needed for a second resolution.
•
Without a
“dramatic new fact”, Mr Ricketts did not see how a second
resolution
could be
achieved “in the next few weeks”.
•
“UK
politics [made] it essential to have a second
resolution”.
641.
In
Mr Ricketts’ view, the US and UK had to “contrive the
circumstances” in which
they could
“carry a broad coalition and domestic opinion with us. Going
without the UN
carried the
big price of resentment in the Muslim world, including increased
terrorism/
risk of
being stuck for years with the burden of rebuilding post‑Saddam
Iraq.” Working
with the UN
would allow Iraq to be “rebuilt with international support” which
would allow
the UK “to
exit”, and would be a “powerful message for other would‑be
proliferators. That
prize is
worth taking time over.”
642.
Mr Blair
decided on 23 January to ask President Bush for a few weeks’
delay
to maximise
the chances of finding a “smoking gun” as the basis for a
second
resolution.
643.
Mr Campbell
wrote that on 22 January he and Baroness Morgan,
Mr Blair’s
Director of
Political and Government Relations, had “banged on” about the need
for the
US to be on
a “broader international route” and that
Mr Blair:
“… sensed
the inspectors would not necessarily come out with what was needed
for
absolute
clarity, so we would have to face the prospect of going in without
a UNSCR.
Chirac was
making it clearer than ever that he would be against war come
what
may, even
with a smoking gun.”218
217
Minute
Ricketts to Private Secretary [FCO], 23 January 2003, ‘Iraq:
Discussion with the Prime Minister’
attaching
Paper, ‘Iraq: Planned Presentation for President
Bush’.
218
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
113