3.8 |
Development of UK strategy and options, 8 to 20 March
2003
568.
Sir Jeremy
commented that the process had “ground to a halt” because the
text
leaked and
the leaked version did not resemble the final draft and because
President
Lagos had
spoken out too soon, “alerting the US who then put on great
pressure to kill
it”. A
Chilean official had told the UK Mission that the US pressure on
Chile in particular
had been
“more … than that put on them to support the UK/US/Spain
resolution”.
569.
When the EU
Heads of Mission met to take stock on 14 March, Sir
Jeremy
Greenstock
told them “discussions were continuing” and he had made clear to
the
African and
Latin American members of the Council that he was “ready to talk at
any
stage. But
there remained differences on substance and procedure.” In response
to
a comment
from the German Ambassador that “both the British and U-6
proposals
were dead
in the water”, Sir Jeremy replied that the UK “would keep going”;
the Azores
Summit
“represented a final opportunity”.
570.
A scheduled
meeting of the P5 was cancelled because there was “little
to
talk about”.
571.
Sir Jeremy
also spoke to Dr Blix, and to Mr Annan about “the leading
role” he
(Mr Annan)
could play in the event of conflict “in healing wounds and
reinserting the
UN into
the post-conflict situation”.
572.
Sir Jeremy
concluded:
“The fact
of the Azores Summit, the collapse of the U-6 compromise under
our
combined
pressure and general exhaustion here in New York, have all added
up
to a less
troublesome day than we might have expected.
“Clearly
key decisions on the resolution will be made at the Summit. In
addition
to any
other instructions, grateful if you could consider whether it is
worth giving
UNMOVIC/IAEA
and the UN advance notice of any announcement on next steps
so
that they
can make the earliest possible preparations to evacuate staff from
Iraq …”
573.
Mr Campbell
wrote that on 14 March “the diplomatic scene was going nowhere
but
we kept
going with the line we were working flat out for a second
resolution”.191
574.
Resolution
1441 decided:
•
that Iraq
had been and remained “in material breach of its obligations
under
relevant
resolutions”, in particular through its “failure to co-operate”
with the
191
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
497