The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
694.
The UK
strategy was set out in a telegram from Mr Ricketts to
diplomatic posts
on the
evening of 21 February.198
The key
points were:
“The
present plan is to table a simple draft resolution in the Security
Council,
probably on
24 February. This would provide the … legal authority for military
action
if
necessary. We would make clear that it was part of a strategy to
give Iraq another
short
period in which to demonstrate finally and fully whether it was
co-operating in
order to
achieve voluntary disarmament of its WMD. We would … not be seeking
a
vote … for
another two weeks or so, but were not prepared for the process to
string
out in the
absence of a clear will by Iraq to comply with 1441.
“… we would
expect several further rounds of discussion in the Security
Council
…
culminating in a report by the inspectors to a meeting on or around
7 March,
probably
attended by Foreign Ministers.”
695.
Mr Ricketts
advised that there would be an intensive lobbying campaign of
the
elected
members of the Security Council with a “good deal of travel by
Ministers”.
The campaign
would be co-ordinated with the US and Spain. The FCO would be
setting
up a system
to “provide an up-date at least twice a week while the crisis
remains at its
present
pitch”, and was producing a daily “core script” for media
purposes.
696.
In a letter to
Mr Campbell about statements over the weekend of 22
and
23 February,
Mr Straw advised against any reference to either an
“ultimatum” or to
“benchmarks”.199
Mr Straw
explained that the US was hostile to the use of the
former
term
because “it would cut across a real ultimatum which President Bush
had in mind
to issue
at about the time the resolution was voted – to Saddam to ‘get out
of town’”.
697.
On benchmarks,
there was:
“… a trap
here for us to avoid. If we are too specific about how we judge
Saddam’s
compliance,
we set ourselves up as a target, both from Saddam but also from
Blix.
Saddam will
know what he appears to have to do to get ticks in the right
boxes.
Judging
from the Prime Minister’s conversation with Blix yesterday, I think
Blix is
also in the
mood to say if he possibly can that Iraq has passed any
benchmarks
that we
offer. Most of the members of the Security Council will look to
Blix for
their judgement.”
698.
In his
diaries, Mr Campbell wrote that, on 21 February,
Mr Blair, who was on his
way to
Rome, had called him to say that “everything now had to be set in
the context
of pushing
for peace, that we wanted to resolve it peacefully”.
Mr Campbell had worked
with the
White House on a briefing note. Mr Blair and Mr Straw had
been happy to
include a
reference to an ultimatum until Mr Straw spoke to Secretary
Powell “who
198
Telegram 16
FCO London to UKREP Brussels, 21 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Next Steps
at the UN’.
199
Letter
Straw to Campbell, 21 February 2003, ‘Choreography of Statements
over the Weekend’.
302