The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“Success in
Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace and
set
in motion
progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state. The passing
of
Saddam
Hussein’s regime will deprive terrorist networks … of a wealthy
patron …
And other
regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror would
not
be tolerated.”
802.
President Bush
also stated that a future Palestinian state must abandon for
ever
the use of
terror and that, as the threat of terror receded, Israel must
support efforts
to create
a viable state. He reiterated his personal commitment to implement
the
Road Map,
but without setting a timetable.
803.
President Bush
said that confronting Iraq showed the US “commitment to
effective
international
institutions”; and that he wanted the words of the Security Council
to have
meaning.
The world needed:
“…
international bodies with the authority and will to stop the spread
of terror
and
chemical and biological weapons … High-minded pronouncements
against
proliferation
mean little unless the strongest nations are willing to stand
behind them
– and use
force if necessary … the United Nations was created, as Winston
Churchill
said, ‘to
make sure that the force of right will, in the ultimate issue, be
protected
by the
right of force’.”
804.
In her memoir,
Dr Rice wrote that the speech was made after she and
Mr Hadley
had
“realized belatedly” in late February “that the President had not
made the broader
arguments”
for action in Iraq. She also commented: “But the die had been cast.
This was
a war that
had been justified by an intelligence judgement, not a strategic
one.”243
805.
Following the
speech, Mr Straw asked for further work on the draft vision
for
the Iraqi
people, which had first been produced in 2001, on the grounds that
a “public
commitment
on the lines of the draft could have a powerful impact in Iraq and
the region
as well as
on the British domestic debate”.244
It would
not be launched or trailed until
after the
UN had voted on the second resolution because of the risk that it
would be
presented
as “discounting the role” of the Security Council. Care would also
be needed
to avoid
confusing the message that the justification for military action
rested firmly
on disarmament
of WMD.
806.
Mr Straw
thought it essential that the UK, US and “other coalition members”
were
speaking to
a common script. That underlined the importance of making progress
with
the US on
post-conflict planning; and although there was nothing in the UK
draft that
“could not
be squared with US policy” as set out in President Bush’s speech,
“elements
… go
further than the US has so far done in public or, on some issues
including
UN involvement,
in private”.
243
Rice
C. No Higher
Honour: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. Simon
& Schuster, 2011.
244
Letter Owen
to Rycroft, 28 February 2003, ‘A Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi
People’.
322