3.7 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003
410.
Mr Straw
concluded by stating that the period since resolution 687 (1991)
had
been passed
had “frankly been a period of humiliation” for the Council and the
UN as
“games have
been played with the Council’s authority”. The Charter required the
Council
to “back
the diplomatic process with a credible threat of force and also, if
necessary,
to be
ready to use that force”. If the Council decided to:
“… back
away … to give unlimited time for little or no co-operation on
substance –
then the
disarmament of Iraq and the peace and security of the
international
community,
for which we are responsible, will not get any easier, but
very
much harder.
“This issue
is not just about Iraq … If we send out the message to
proliferators … that
defiance of
the United Nations pays, then it will not be peace that we have
secured.”
411.
Secretary
Powell stated that the Council should consider whether it was
time
to consider
the serious consequences intended by resolution 1441.
412.
The points
made by Secretary Powell included:
•
The
inspectors had reported progress, but it was on process not
substance, and
tricks were
being played by Iraq.
•
Resolution
1441 was about disarmament, not inspections. It stated that Iraq
was
in material
breach of its obligations and must now come into
compliance.
•
The
requirement in the resolution for a full, complete and accurate
declaration
of its
activities had been “an early test of Iraq’s seriousness; the
answer in its
declaration
[of 7 December] was that it was not going to
co-operate”.
•
Connections
between Iraq and terrorist organisations were “now
emerging”.
We could
not wait for weapons of mass destruction to show up in our
cities.
The weapons
“could kill tens of thousands of people” if they “got into
the
wrong hands”.
•
If Iraq had
been co-operating, documents would be flooding in and there
would
be a queue
of interviewees.
•
Iraq did
not need time to decide to co-operate. Iraq’s recent actions were
not
responsible,
they were “continued efforts to deceive, to deny, to divert, to
throw
us off the
trail”.
•
Resolution
1441 had anticipated Iraq’s response. The improvements in
process,
more
inspections and a longer inspection period would not move the
position
that Iraq
had “failed to comply”.
•
The threat
of force “should always be a last resort”, but it “must be a
resort”.
The process
could not be “endlessly strung out”, as Iraq was trying to do,
until
the world’s
attention moved in other directions.
•
Iraq could
not “be allowed to get away with it again”. The Council
had
to think through
the consequences of walking away or the reality of
facing
253