3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
•
Mr Blair
felt that there had been “a bit more give” from President Putin in
their
last call;
and that “the problem was that the Chiles and Mexicos were not
used
to making
decisions as big as these …”82
240.
Mr Campbell
commented that President Bush “did not feel the need to buy
more
time” and
that he was “more impatient than ever”. He was “not really
listening”.
241.
Mr Tony
Brenton, Chargé d’Affaires at the British Embassy Washington,
reported
that
Mr Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, told
him on 11 March,
before
Mr Blair’s conversation with President Bush, that he was
“unsure whether
Chile and
Mexico were moving in the right direction”.83
President
Bush had spoken to
President
Fox, who had “bid for a 45-day deadline”. When President Bush had
“said
no way”,
President Fox “had retreated, saying he would study the papers
further”.
President Bush
“was still trying to speak” to President Lagos.
242.
In response to
a question from Mr Armitage about whether if it looked as
though
there would
be nine positive votes but “one or two vetoes” the UK would want to
go for
a Security
Council vote “or pull the resolution”, Mr Brenton had said
that “would depend
crucially
on calculations of how it would play in Parliament”.
Mr Armitage “thought that
President
Bush’s instinct would be to go for a vote, though the impact on the
UK would
weigh
heavily with him”.
243.
Mr Stephen
Hadley, the US Deputy National Security Advisor, had been
“more
direct”.
President Bush’s “instinct would be to go for a vote on 12 March,
or 13 March
at the
latest, whatever the situation”.
244.
Mr Kurt
Volker, the US National Security Council (NSC) Director for
NATO
and West
Europe, had separately told UK officials that President Bush had
rejected
a
suggestion from Mr Aznar that the resolution might be pulled;
he wanted, and
had
promised the American people, a vote. Mr Aznar had also
proposed that those
supporting
the resolution might be asked to co-sponsor it “to act as a
disincentive to
France and
Russia to veto”. Mr Brenton and Mr Volker “agreed
co-sponsorship seemed
a bridge
too far right now”.
245.
Mr Brenton
reported that he had also been asked by both Mr Armitage
and
Mr Hadley
whether Mr Hoon’s comments to Secretary Rumsfeld meant that
the UK’s
“determination
to go in alongside the US was diminishing”. He had said “not”; the
UK
“remained
confident that we would go alongside the US” and he “assumed” that
Mr Hoon
“had simply
been setting out the Parliamentary realities” to Secretary
Rumsfeld.
82
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to Iraq.
Hutchinson,
2012.
83
Telegram
325 Washington to FCO London, 11 March 2003, ‘Iraq: US views, 11
March’. [Contents suggest
that date
of telegram should be 12 March.]
441