The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
to include
this language. Therefore, if a resolution in the form contained …
[in the
advice from
UKMIS New York] is all that is likely to be negotiable, he
considers it
would be
sufficient …”
443.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock remained concerned about the lack of support in
the
Security
Council and the implications, including the legal implications, of
putting
the
resolution to a vote and failing to get it adopted.
444.
A draft of a
second resolution was tabled by the UK, US and Spain on 24
February.
The draft
operative paragraphs stated simply that the Security
Council:
•
“Decides
that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it
by
resolution
1441.”
•
“Decides to
remain seized of the matter.”175
445.
France, Russia
and Germany responded by tabling a memorandum which
proposed
strengthening inspections and bringing forward the work programme
specified
in
resolution 1284 (1999) and accelerating its
timetable.176
446.
Canada also
circulated ideas for a process based on key tasks identified
by
447.
Sir Jeremy
Greenstock advised that in circumstances where there were fewer
than
nine
positive votes but everyone else abstained, the resolution would
not be adopted
and it
would have no legal effect.178
He found
it:
“… hard to
see how we could draw much legal comfort from such an outcome;
but
an
authoritative determination would be a matter for the Law Officers.
(Kosovo was
different:
in that case a Russian draft condemning the NATO action as illegal
was
heavily
defeated, leaving open the claim that the action was lawful … (or
at least
was so
regarded by the majority of the Council).
“Furthermore,
in the current climate … the political mandate to be drawn from
a
draft which
failed to achieve nine positive votes seems to me likely to be (at
best)
weak … The
stark reality would remain that the US and UK had tried and
failed
to persuade
the Council to endorse the use of force against Iraq. And the
French
175
Telegram
302 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 25 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Tabling
of US/UK/Spanish
Draft
Resolution: Draft Resolution’.
176
UN Security
Council, 23 February 2003, ‘Letter dated 24 February 2003 from the
Permanent
Representatives
of France, Germany and the Russian Federation to the United Nations
addressed to the
President
of the Security Council’ (S/2003/214).
177
Letter
Wright to Colleagues, 24 February 2003, [untitled] attaching
‘Non-paper: Ideas on Bridging
the Divide’.
178
Letter
Greenstock to Manning, 25 February 2003, [untitled].
80