The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
313.
Mr Annan
“had agreed ruefully”, but asked what the UK would do if we failed
to get
even nine
votes. Sir Jeremy said:
“… we would
have to consider the next steps; but we believed we had a basis
for
the use of
force in existing resolutions (based on the revival of the 678
authorisation
by the
material breach finding in OP1 of 1441, coupled with Iraq’s
manifest failure to
take the
final opportunity offered to it in that resolution) … OP12 … did
not in terms
require
another decision. This was not an accidental oversight: it had been
the basis
of the
compromise that led to the adoption of the
resolution.”
314.
Sir Jeremy
reported that he had “urged” Mr Annan “to be cautious about
allowing
his name to
be associated too closely with one legal view of a complicated
and
difficult issue”.
315.
At
Mr Annan’s suggestion, Sir Jeremy subsequently gave the UN
Office of Legal
Affairs a
copy of Professor Christopher Greenwood’s (Professor of
International Law,
London
School of Economics) memorandum to the Foreign Affairs Committee
(FAC)
of October
2002 and Mr Straw’s evidence to the FAC on 4 March
2003.
316.
Sir Jeremy
concluded that Mr Annan had said “several times” that he
“understood”
what
Mr Straw and Mr Blair “were trying to do, and expressed
sympathy for the tough
situation
you found yourselves in”. Mr Aznar was “in a similar
predicament”. The “US did
not always
realise how comments intended by US politicians for US domestic
audiences
seriously
damaged the position of their friends in other
countries”.
317.
Sir Jeremy
also reported that, in a conversation with President Chirac on 12
March,
Mr Annan
had “found him ‘tough but not closed’ to possible
compromises”.
318.
Mr Straw
informed Mr Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, that
the
UK was
about to table a revised resolution, omitting the paragraph from
the
7 March
draft which contained the deadline of 17 March for Iraq to
demonstrate
that it had
taken the final opportunity offered in resolution 1441 to comply
with
its obligations.
319.
Mr Straw
telephoned Mr Ivanov to inform him that Sir Jeremy Greenstock
was
about to
table a “much lighter draft second resolution”, which omitted the
third operative
paragraph
from the draft of 7 March.105
Mr Straw
explained that the UK “did not want
the last
act of the UN on Iraq to be a deeply divided one”; the
“imperatives” in resolution
1441 had
not been met; and that neither Mr Blair nor Mr Straw
“wanted military action,
nor did
Powell or Bush”. The US and the UN inspectors had “agreed” the
tests the
UK would
propose in a side statement. The format of the tests would be for
the UN
to decide.
105
Telegram 46
FCO London to Moscow, 12 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Foreign Secretary’s
Conversation with
Russian
Foreign Minister, 12 March’.
454