The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
33.
Mr Blair
telephoned Mr Vladimir Putin, the Russian President and
Mr Silvio
Berlusconi,
the Italian Prime Minister (who was in Moscow).6
Mr Blair
also spoke
to a number
of his other counterparts, with similar messages.
34.
On 4 February,
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK Permanent Representative to
the
UN in New
York, told Mr Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, that the
UK “had not
won as much
further time as we wished” in the meeting between Mr Blair and
President
Bush on 31
January, but “we still had the whole of February and a bit of March
to work
with” and
“the Americans would work actively for a second resolution”. The UK
wanted
the UN
inspectors to “deliver further results, because this would make it
more likely that
the
international non-proliferation system remained in
control”.7
35.
Sir David
Manning told Dr Rice on 5 February that, while the UK would
want
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock’s advice before taking a firm view, his preference
was
to start discussing
a second resolution after the report to the Security
Council
on 14 February
by Dr Blix.8
36.
At the
Franco-British Summit on 4 February, Mr Jacques Chirac,
the
French
President, made clear that inspections should continue unless
the
inspectors
reported that they could not do their job. War would be the
worst
possible solution.
37.
Sir John
Holmes, British Ambassador to France, reported on 1 February
that,
in
a conversation about the forthcoming summit, Mr Maurice
Gourdault-Montagne,
President
Chirac’s Diplomatic Adviser, had emphasised that France had never
been
a pacifist
country, and was certainly not one now, and it was not
anti-American and
never would
be.9
But it
was:
“… not
acceptable for Europe simply to be dragged along in the US wake
when our
interests
did not fully coincide. In the case of Iraq, there was no
disagreement on the
need to
disarm Iraq, but all the options short of war had not been explored
properly
yet, and we
were being forced to march to an artificial US timetable which was
not in
our
interests. It remained to be seen whether Powell [Mr Colin
Powell, US Secretary
of State]
would produce much … [at the Security Council meeting on 5
February].
For the
moment the French were still not convinced there were really major
things
for the
inspectors to find, or that Iraqi non-co-operation was sufficient
to say they
were in
breach of 1441.”
38.
Sir John wrote
that he judged President Chirac was “finally beginning to think
that
France is
in danger of finding herself in a false position”, but he was “not
yet ready to
move
towards us very significantly”.
6
Letter
Rycroft to Sinclair, 3 February 2003, ‘Iraq and Middle East: Prime
Minister’s Phone Call with Putin
and
Berlusconi’.
7
Telegram
204 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 5 February 2003, ‘Iraq:
Discussions on 4 February’.
8
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 5 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Conversation with
Condi Rice’.
9
Email
Holmes to Manning, 1 February 2003, ‘Franco-British
Summit’.
186