3.7 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003
too often”;
and that while no one wanted to go to war, “the dangers of stopping
now may
be greater
than going ahead”.
29.
Lord Wallace
of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat) stated that the Liberal
Democrats
supported
Mr Blair’s efforts “to ensure that containment of Iraq”
continued to be
managed
multilaterally, and noted the “very careful balancing act” with the
unilateral
language
used by the US Administration. Questioning a linkage between rogue
states,
WMD and
terrorism, Lord Wallace concluded:
“What
worries us most on these Benches is the extent to which the
questions
of rogue
states, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism are conflated, as
they
are again
in this statement. Terrorism is a real, long-term problem, and it
will not
be resolved
by military intervention in Iraq or by disarming Iraq. What worries
many
of us about
what we hear from Washington at the moment is what we perceive
as
a lack of
understanding about the long-term nature of the terrorist problem
in the
Muslim
world. We need to be sure that we are standing up for universal
values and
not simply
Western values, let alone American values … An upsurge of
terrorism
after an
invasion of Iraq is a possibility for us.”
30.
Mr Alastair
Campbell, Mr Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy,
wrote
that
Mr Blair “felt … we had finally got the focus where it needed
to be, on the issue
of co-operation
with Blix”.3
31.
When Sir David
Manning, Mr Blair’s Foreign Policy Adviser and Head of the
Cabinet
Office
Overseas and Defence Secretariat (OD Sec), spoke to
Dr Condoleezza Rice,
President
Bush’s National Security Advisor, on 3 February. They agreed that a
second
resolution
should be “pursued energetically”.4
The UK and
US approaches should be
carefully
co-ordinated. Following a discussion of the positions of various
members
of the
Security Council, Dr Rice agreed with Sir David’s conclusion
that, “we would
undoubtedly
have to work hard to get our nine votes; but it did not look
impossible”.
32.
Mr Blair
told Mr José María Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, that
President Bush
favoured a
second resolution “in principle”.5
They agreed
that the UK and Spain should
work
together on a resolution.
3
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to Iraq.
Hutchinson,
2012.
4
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 3 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Conversation with
Condi Rice’.
5
Letter
Rycroft to Sinclair, 3 February 2003, ‘Iraq and MEPP: Prime
Minister’s Conversation with Aznar,
3 February’.
185