3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
502.
As the
preceding Sections of the Report show:
•
France and
Russia had consistently expressed reservations about US and
UK
policy on
Iraq and the consequences of military action. In particular, they
were
concerned
about the use of force without clear evidence that Iraq had
weapons
of mass
destruction and without an explicit authorisation by the Security
Council.
•
Members of
the Security Council had differing views of Iraq’s position
and
whether or
not its actions indicated a strategic decision to co-operate with
the
requirements
of resolution 1441.
503.
In his
statement for the Inquiry, Sir Jeremy Greenstock wrote
that:
•
he had been
in no doubt that France and Russia, accompanied
consistently
by Germany,
would be fighting the UK all the way on the proposed
second
resolution;
•
the US, the
UK, Spain and Bulgaria were a “reasonably solid
quartet”;
•
China and
Syria “could not be expected to support the UK”; and
•
much of the
resistance in the Security Council to the UK’s arguments
revolved
around the
question “What is the hurry when the inspectors are just getting
down
504.
Sir Jeremy
judged “with hindsight that most members of the Security
Council
would have
opposed the use of force … on almost any timing unless the
inspectors
had
succeeded in exposing Iraq’s deception with the discovery of an
active chemical
or biological
weapon”.
505.
Sir Jeremy
told the Inquiry, “I never felt that we got close to having nine
positive
votes in
the bag” and that when he was asked by London how many votes he
felt were
sure, he
would say four:
“I would
never report it back to London that I had more than four sure
votes.”157
506.
Sir Jeremy
said that President Chirac’s remarks on 10 March:
“… made my
life more difficult, because it made the ‘undecided six’, for
instance,
believe
that we were now going through the motions of something that was
not
going to
produce a result; therefore why should they do something
unpopular
with their
public opinions at home in siding with the United States on
attacking an
Islamic
country like Iraq, or whatever the reasons were domestically, when
clearly
the
Security Council was not going to reach anything if a Permanent
Member had
pre‑declared
a veto?
“So it did
rather undercut the ground that we were on, yes.”158
156
Statement,
November 2009, pages 14-15.
157
Public
hearing, 27 November 2009, page 71.
158
Public
hearing, 27 November 2009, page 88.
487