3.7 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003
•
the British
media operating in Baghdad did not adequately acknowledge
the
restrictions
under which they were working.
1037.
Summing up the
discussion, Mr Blair said it was “the responsibility of the
Chief
Inspectors
to present the truth about Saddam Hussein’s co-operation with the
United
Nations, so
that the Security Council could discharge its responsibilities in
making the
necessary
political decisions”. The UK was “lobbying hard in favour of the
draft Security
Council
resolution”. It was the duty of Saddam Hussein to co-operate fully,
“and it was
for the
Security Council to determine whether that had been the
case”.
1038.
Mr Cook
wrote that Mr Blair had been “surprisingly upbeat about the
prospects
of getting
the six swing votes on the Security Council” and “even expressed a
hope
that Russia
might abstain and France might not veto”. That was “not just
surprising,
but manifestly
unrealistic”.325
1039.
Ms Short wrote
that her diary entry for that meeting recorded that she had
said
she
regretted:
“… we
couldn’t use our leverage to get publication of the Road Map. Arm
twisting
members of
the Security Council looks bad and diminishes the UN. Can’t we let
the
Blix
process have integrity. Have to have UN mandate for reconstruction,
otherwise
1040.
Ms Short added
that, in a meeting before Cabinet, Mr Blair had said that
he
might need
to go to see President Bush again which was the “only way he can
get him
[President
Bush] to listen”. Ms Short asked Mr Blair to see Mr Annan
too.
1041.
Mr Campbell
described the meeting as “scratchy”. Both Mr Cook and Ms
Short
had been “a
bit bolder in setting out their concerns”. Ms Short had said the
“idea of
horse
trading and bullying was bad for the authority of the UN”.
Mr Blair had “hit back
quite hard”
saying “it was not just the US who were bullying and intimidating”;
France
was making
threats too.327
1042.
After Cabinet
on 6 March, Mr Blair chaired a meeting on post-conflict
issues
with Mr Brown,
Mr Hoon, Ms Short, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (the
joint
FCO/Department
of Trade and Industry (DTI) Minister for Trade and
Investment),
Sir Michael Jay
and “other officials”.328
That
meeting is addressed in Section 6.5.
325
Cook
R. The Point
of Departure. Simon
& Schuster UK Ltd, 2003.
326
Short
C. An
Honourable Deception: New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of
Power. The Free
Press, 2004.
327
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
328
Letter
Cannon to Owen, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Post-Conflict
Issues’.
365