3.7 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 1 February to 7 March
2003
1061.
The FCO
identified a number of “key points”, including:
•
The report
was “inevitably not comprehensive”. It was: “Impossible to
provide
a comprehensive
list of disarmament tasks without Iraqi co-operation and
given
the
inspectors were out of Iraq for four years.”
•
A “huge
number of questions remain unanswered”. More than 100
specific
actions had
been identified which Iraq “must take”. Those were “not
difficult,
mostly
concerning the need to present documents, evidence and more
coherent
accounts of
Iraq’s work”. Iraq “could have provided this at any
time”.
•
Iraq could
“give no credible account of the surge of activity in the
missile
technology
field over the last four years”.
•
Destruction
of the Al Samoud 2 missiles had begun by the UNMOVIC
set
deadline of
1 March and 28 had been destroyed by 5 March: “No
end-date
has been
set for the process.”
•
There were
“uncertainties about Iraq’s use of mobile
‘factories’”.
•
Iraq’s
failure to co-operate over private interviews raised “further
suspicions
that Iraq
has something to hide”.
•
UNSCOM had
a list of 3,500 names of those it might wish to
interview.
1062.
At No.10’s
request, the FCO analysis was sent to all Cabinet
Ministers
1063.
A further
analysis of the “clusters” document by Downing Street officials
on
6 March
picked out the areas which demonstrated Iraqi non-co-operation. As
there
was only
limited material on ongoing production programmes (other than
ballistic
missiles),
the two key sets of concerns related to leftover questions from
UNSCOM
on chemical
and biological weapons, and evidence of a “systematic pattern of
deceit
1064.
In his
discussions with President Lagos on 6 March, Mr Blair stated
that
the US
would go ahead without the UN if asked to delay military action
until April
or May.
1065.
In his
discussion with President Lagos on 6 March, Mr Blair was
reported to have
stated
that:
•
Saddam
Hussein would not make concessions unless he was under
pressure.
•
If the US
was asked to delay action until April or May, “they would simply
go
ahead
without the UN”; we could not expect President Bush to wait after
the
end of
March.
332
Letter Owen
to Prout, 6 March 2003. ‘Iraq: Report from UNMOVIC Chairman, Hans
Blix’.
333
Minute
Cannon to Prime Minister, 6 March 2003, ‘Iraq: “Clusters”
Document’.
369