The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
In
anticipation of Secretary Powell’s presentation of 5 February,
Dr Sabri wrote to
Mr Annan
on 31 January requesting the US Government to “submit immediately
its
alleged
evidence” to enable UNMOVIC and the IAEA to begin investigations
and report
to the
Security Council.285
Dr Sabri
also stated that the 518 inspections since 27 November, which
included all the
sites
identified by the US and the UK, had shown that the allegations
were “devoid of
truth and
had been drafted in order to distort the picture of Iraq and create
pretexts for
aggression
against Iraq and against the region as a whole”.
878.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock went to see Mr Annan on 31 January to bring
him
up to date
with the UK’s thinking.286
879.
Sir Jeremy
reported that he had told Mr Annan that:
•
The UK
“would be encouraging the US to give the process more time and
would
also
underline the importance of a second resolution”.
•
The UK
wanted to hear Dr Blix’s report on 14 February and might want
another
one after
that.
•
He did not
think there would be military action during February.
•
“We were
concerned to ensure enough time (even beyond that [late
February])
to make it
as likely as possible we could secure a second
resolution.”
•
“The only
way to resolve this issue without force was for Saddam to crack
and
preferably
to leave (though we realised the latter seemed unlikely at
present).”
880.
Sir Jeremy
also asked whether what he had proposed “offended Annan’s
bottom
line on the
need to safeguard the international system”. Mr Annan had
replied that
it did not.
881.
Mr Campbell
wrote that, “going over the same questions again and
again”
in Washington
on 31 January before the meeting with President Bush,
Mr Blair:
“… kept
saying we needed a clear intellectual construct, which was that
1441 focus
should be
on co‑operation issues, if the Iraqis didn’t co‑operate and Blix
makes
that clear
repeatedly, we should say so and then we go for a second resolution
and
action
could follow. We had allowed the goalposts to be moved to the
smoking‑gun
issue, and
instead it had to be about the inspectors not getting
co‑operation.”287
285
UN Security
Council, 31 January 2003, ‘Letter dated 31 January 2003 from the
Permanent
Representative
of Iraq to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary‑General’
(S/2003/132).
286
Telegram
183 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 31 January 2003, ‘Iraq:
Discussion with Kofi Annan’.
287
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
162