The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
58.
Mr Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary, stated that Iraq was now in
further
material
breach of resolution 1441. If that continued, the Security Council
should
meet its
responsibilities.
59.
In a
discussion of 29 January about the Security Council on 5 February,
Mr Straw
told
Secretary Powell that he had considered the idea that the UK should
publish a
dossier
alongside the US presentation but he “did not think it was a good
idea since
it could
only be an echo of his”.17
They also
discussed how to address Iraq’s human
rights record.
60.
In his
statement to the Security Council, Mr Straw described
Secretary Powell’s
presentation
as “a most powerful and authoritative case against the Iraqi
regime” and
thanked him
for “laying bare the deceit practised by the regime of Saddam
Hussein,
and worse,
the very great danger which that regime
represents”.18
61.
Mr Straw
stated that resolution 1441 had given Iraq “a final opportunity to
rid
itself of
its weapons of mass terror, of gases which can poison thousands in
one go;
of bacilli
and viruses like anthrax and smallpox which can disable and kill by
the tens
of thousands;
of the means to make nuclear weapons which can kill by the
million”.
62.
Resolution
1441 had strengthened inspections but without Iraq’s “full and
active
co-operation”
they could never be sure of finding all WMD in a country the size
of Iraq.
But the
inspectors’ reports on 27 January and Secretary Powell’s
presentation could
leave “no
illusions”. Saddam Hussein held resolution 1441 in contempt and was
defying
the
Council. He was questioning “our resolve” and was “gambling that we
will lose our
nerve
rather than enforce our will”.
63.
The resolution
had “set two clear tests for a further material breach by
Iraq”:
•
not to make
“false statements” or “omissions” in its declaration;
and
•
“to comply
with, and co-operate fully in the implementation” of resolution
1441.
64.
In relation to
the first, Mr Straw stated that Iraq’s declaration of 7
December was
“not full,
nor accurate, nor complete”:
•
It was “a
false statement. Its central premise – that Iraq possesses no
weapons
of mass
destruction – is a lie.”
•
“The
declaration also has obvious omissions, not least a failure to
explain
what has
happened to the large quantities of chemical and biological
weapons
materiel
and munitions unaccounted for by UN weapons inspectors in
1998.”
•
There was
“no admission of Iraq’s extensive efforts to develop WMD since
the
last round
of UNSCOM [UN Special Commission] inspections ended”.
17
Letter
Straw to Manning, 29 January 2003, ‘Iraq: Foreign Secretary’s
Conversation with Colin Powell,
29 January
2003’.
18
UN Security
Council, ‘4701st Meeting Wednesday 5 February 2003’
(S/PV.4701).
190