The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
He wondered
if the Council could set benchmarks and mentioned interviews
with
scientists.
He understood UNMOVIC had interviewed only seven scientists.
“Setting
benchmarks
… looked better than going to war over a few
missiles.”
864.
President
Lagos said that he was calling on other P5 states to
assume
responsibility
for what was going on. It was not acceptable for them to say:
“We’ll
abstain,
it’s not our war”. He had told President Chirac that was not good
enough; if he
did not
agree with the resolution, he should veto rather than shift the
responsibility on
to others.
President Chirac had sent an emissary to try to win him [Lagos]
over, but he
thought it
would be possible to work out a compromise in the Security Council
“during
the week”
and he wanted to talk through the benchmarks idea with Sir David
Manning.
865.
Mr Blair
recommended that Chile should look again at the 1999
UNSCOM
report
which made clear the scale of outstanding material and the extent
of Iraqi deceit.
The issues
were the “unaccounted for WMD and the need for real co-operation”.
The
missiles
were “a side issue”. Saddam Hussein “had admitted their existence
thinking
they were
not in breach of sanctions”, and he “had had little choice but to
destroy them
when
UNMOVIC decided that they were”.
866.
Mr Blair
stated that he:
“… took
[President] Lagos’ point about the need to be precise and specific
about
what the
Security Council wanted. Otherwise people interpreted the
destruction of
the
missiles as real progress and said that we should leave the
inspectors in longer.”
867.
President
Lagos agreed. The real issue was CBW not missiles, and that
should
be put to
the international community. Mr Blair was right that Saddam
Hussein was only
co-operating
because of the pressure on him, but he wanted the P5 to
“participate and
assume
their responsibilities”.
868.
President
Lagos added that the French political system seemed to be
divided
on
a veto: “There was an internal discourse … But the French were
not producing
alternative
ideas, they were just playing for time.” President Chirac had told
him that
he was
against any deadline at all, not just that suggested by
Canada.
869.
Mr Blair
stated that he was “in no doubt that Saddam had CBW and
was
concealing
it”, but he “accepted the need to think about how to present the
case”.
870.
In his
subsequent meeting with President Lagos, Sir David Manning was
reported
to have set
out the need to act on Iraq to prevent other potential
proliferators; the
importance
of the UN delivering after President Bush had been persuaded to go
down
the UN
route; and Saddam Hussein’s failure to take his opportunity and the
continued
pattern of
obstruction.270
Sir David
“regretted” the split in the Security Council; without
it,
Saddam
Hussein might have cracked. The UK saw war as a last resort and
“needed a
270
Telegram 34
from Santiago to FCO London, 2 March 2003, ‘Chile/Iraq: Visit by
Manning and Scarlett’.
336