3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
306.
Sir Jeremy
reported that he had explained the gist of the plan to
Ambassador
Negroponte
who was briefing Secretary Powell for a conversation with President
Bush.
307.
Sir Jeremy
reported that Mr Annan had asked how it could be right,
when
the Council
had not yet reached a decision to authorise force, for some
Member
States to
take the right to use force into their own hands.
308.
At
Mr Annan’s request, Sir Jeremy Greenstock called on him on 12
March.104
309.
Mr Annan
was reported to have told Sir Jeremy that he had an idea from
his
telephone
calls with Mr Blair about the UK efforts to unite the Security
Council around
compromise
text (for a resolution), but how would France and Russia react? Sir
Jeremy
explained
the UK concept of a side statement and tests which Saddam Hussein
could
meet
“within the tight deadline we would offer (ideally 10 days)” if he
“was serious about
disarming”.
Council members “should be able to agree the concept we were
offering as
a way out
of the current impasse”.
310.
Sir Jeremy
reported that he had stressed that the UK’s objective “was
the
disarmament
of Iraq by peaceful means if possible”. The “aim was to keep a
united
Security
Council at the centre of attempts to disarm Iraq”, but calls for
“grace period for
Iraq” of 45
days or longer were “out of the question”. The UK would not amend
the draft
resolution
tabled on 7 March:
“… until it
was clear that the new concept had a chance of succeeding. If the
Council
was
interested, we might be able to move forward in the next day or so;
if not, we
would be
back on the 7 March text and my instructions were to take a vote
soon.”
311.
Sir Jeremy and
Mr Annan had also discussed press reporting, on 11 March,
of
Mr Annan’s
comments, “to the effect that military action without a Council
authorisation
would
violate the UN Charter”. Mr Annan said that he had
been:
“…
misquoted: he had not been attempting an interpretation of 1441 but
merely
offering,
in answer to a specific question, obvious thoughts about the basic
structure
of the
Charter. Nevertheless the Council was seized of the Iraq problem
and working
actively on
it. It had not yet reached a decision to authorise force; how …
could it be
right for
some Member States to take the right to use force into their own
hands?”
312.
Sir Jeremy
reported that he had “remonstrated that the Council was in
paralysis:
at least
one Permanent Member had threatened to veto ‘in any circumstances’.
The
Council was
not shouldering its responsibilities.”
104
Telegram
427 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 13 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Call on the
Secretary-General,
12
March’.
453