The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“Jeremy
Greenstock has given you the negotiating history of OP4 and of how
the
words ‘for
assessment’ were included. It is crucial to emphasise, as Jeremy
spelt
out, that
the overwhelming issue between US/UK and the
French/Russians/Chinese
(F/R/C) was
whether a second resolution was required to authorise any use
of
force or
not. As Jeremy told you the F/R/C lost on this, and they knew they
had lost.
To achieve
this, however, we had to show that the discussions on the first
resolution
would not
be the end of the matter. So the trade-off … for the F/R/C defeat
on the
substantive
issue of a second resolution was some procedural comfort – provided
in
OPs 4, 11
and 12. If there were a further material breach this would be
“reported to
the Council
for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below
…”
411.
Addressing
Lord Goldsmith’s view that he did not “find much difference”
between
the French
text and the final wording of OP4, Mr Straw stated that there
was “all the
difference
in the world”. The French text160
“would have
given the Security Council … the
exclusive
right to determine whether there had been an OP4 further material
breach”.
The US and
UK had resisted that.
412.
Mr Straw
also challenged Lord Goldsmith’s view that the Council “must”
assess
whether a
breach was material. That was “to ignore both the negotiating
history and the
wording. We
were deliberate in not specifying who would determine that there
had been
a material
breach.”
413.
Addressing the
meaning of the term “for assessment”, Mr Straw wrote that
OP4
itself
offered “meaning by the following words ‘in accordance with
paragraphs 11
and 12
below’.” OP12 provided that the Council would “consider the
situation”, which
Mr Straw
argued stopped short of “decide”. Assessment was not, as Lord
Goldsmith
had
characterised it, “a procedural ‘formality’”. That would be “to
parody what we had
in mind;
but certainly a process in which the outcome was quite deliberately
at large”.
The
resolution had given the F/R/C:
“… further
discussions and time, further reports – and an ability to influence
events,
in return
for no automatic second resolution being necessary. And in return –
a major
US
concession – the US/UK agreed not to rely on 1441 as an
authorisation for the
use of
force immediately after its adoption (so called
automaticity).”
“Putting
all this together, I think the better interpretation of the scheme
laid out in
1441 is
that (i) the fact of the material breach, (ii) (possibly) a further
UNMOVIC
report and
(iii) ‘consideration’ in the Council together revive 678. At the
very least,
this
interpretation, which coincides with our firm policy intention and
that of our
160
On 2
November, France proposed the words “shall constitute a further
material breach of Iraq’s
obligations
when assessed by the Security Council”. See Section
3.5.
74