The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
It had been
decided not to include a provision about exile, but “we were
telling
our Arab
friends that we had got exile language”.
•
Mr Prendergast
stated that giving Saddam Hussein impunity would cause a
“big
public
problem: how could we ignore the ICC [International Criminal
Court]”.
•
Mr Straw
responded that “if the choice was between war or immunity”, he
had
the sense
that “people would breathe a sigh of relief”.
•
If there
were to be a conflict, “the UN had a role in humanitarian
aid
and
reconstruction, and only the UN could give legal authority for
any
post‑Saddam government”.
•
Mr Annan
was reported to be “disturbed” by the American position that
everyone
had to vote
for the resolution “or else the UN would be irrelevant”. The US
knew
it needed
the UN on a range of issues. The UN was “bigger than
Iraq”.
•
Mr Straw
responded that “if we failed the cohesion of the Security Council
would
be
weakened”.
1078.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock reported that Mr Annan had approved.
1079.
In a meeting
with Dr Blix on 6 March, Mr Straw had “acknowledged” that
the
draft resolution:
“… missed
out a necessary intermediate step. We now proposed to offer Saddam
an
opportunity
to show full compliance accompanied by a slightly longer time frame
…
“… [the
Government’s] agenda was disarmament and not regime
change.
The Prime
Minister had told Ivanov that if Saddam gave up his WMD he
could
stay.
President Bush could not say this publicly, but he too would prefer
peaceful
voluntary
disarmament to war. If Dr Blix, as the most important witness
in the whole
process,
reported to the Security Council that Iraq was co-operating then
the bunting
would go up
in London.”337
1080.
Mr Straw
had also “stressed that the underlying intelligence picture which
was
agreed by a
number of services from several countries was clear – Saddam was
not
complying
and was misleading the inspectors”.
1081.
Dr Blix
told Mr Straw that he would report that the Iraqis had made
“some
progress
but they still had a long way to go”. Dr Blix “did not
personally doubt that the
Iraqis were
self sufficient in precursors and had the capability to jump start
production
of a range
of agents. But the inspectors had found little … although the
Iraqis had been
‘hyperactive’
of late in handing over documents and making other gestures,
overall
they were
not co-operating fully.” Dr Blix had agreed with Mr Straw
that “while difficult
to define
we would all soon realise what constituted compliance when the
Iraqis started
co‑operating
fully”.
337
Telegram
373 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Your Meeting
with Blix: 6 March’.
372