The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
303.
The issue
that Lord Goldsmith was addressing in his advice to Mr Blair
was
not what
the UK’s objective had been in negotiating resolution 1441 but its
legal
effect in
the circumstances of early 2003.
304.
Mr Blair
referred again to this manuscript comment in his oral evidence
when
recalling
the No.10 meeting which had taken place on 17 October 2002, “which
we then
minuted
out, including to Peter”; and his meeting with Lord Goldsmith on 22
October 2002.
“… we had
agreed on 17 October that there were clear objectives for the
resolution
and those
objectives were, I think we actually say this very plainly, the
ultimatum
goes into
1441. If he breaches the ultimatum action follows. So this was
the
instruction
given. I mean, I can’t remember exactly what I said after the 22
October,
but I
should imagine I said “Well, you had better make sure it does meet
our
“… the
thing that was problematic for me throughout, and it is why I wrote
… ‘I just
don’t
understand this’ is that the whole point about our instructions to
our negotiators
was, ‘Make
sure that this resolution is sufficient because we can’t guarantee
we are
going to go
back into a further iteration of this or a second
resolution’.”
307.
Mr Blair’s
meeting on 17 October and the meeting between Lord Goldsmith
and
Mr Blair
on 22 October are described in Section 3.5.
308.
In the
meeting on 31 January, President Bush agreed to support a
second
resolution
to help Mr Blair.
309.
A briefing
paper prepared by the FCO Middle East Department on 30
January
described
the objectives for Mr Blair’s meeting with President Bush
as:
“to
convince President Bush that:
•
our
strategy, though working, needs more time;
•
the
military campaign will be very shocking in many parts of the world,
especially
in its
opening phase (five times the bombing of the Gulf
war);
•
a second UN
Security Council resolution (i) would greatly strengthen the
US’s
position,
(ii) is politically essential for the UK, and almost certainly
legally
essential
as well;
116
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 55-56.
58