The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
not
adopted. Instead the members of the Council opted for the formula
that the
Council
must consider the matter before action is taken.
“That
consideration has taken place regularly since the adoption of
resolution
1441. It is
plain, including from UNMOVIC’s statement to the Security Council,
its
Twelfth
Quarterly Report and the so-called ‘Clusters Document’, that Iraq
has not
complied as
required … Whatever other differences there may have been in
the
Security
Council, no member of the Council questioned this conclusion. It
therefore
follows
that Iraq has not taken the final opportunity offered to it and
remains
in material
breach of the disarmament obligations which, for twelve years,
the
Council has
insisted are essential for the restoration of peace and security.
In these
circumstances,
the authorisation to use force contained in resolution 678
revives.”
822.
On 17 March,
Mr Straw wrote to all Parliamentary colleagues with a copy
of
the FCO
paper on Iraq’s non-compliance, a copy of his letter to the
Chairman of the
Foreign
Affairs Committee, and copies of the statements made at the Azores
Summit
823.
Mr Straw
wrote that the FCO paper on non-compliance stated that Iraq
had
“failed to
comply fully with 14 previous UN resolutions related to WMD” and
assessed
Iraq’s
“progress in complying with relevant provisions of UNSCR 1441 with
illustrative
examples”.
824.
To supplement
the Command Paper of UN documents published in
February
(CM 5769)
Mr Straw also published a further Command Paper (CM 5785) with
UN
documents
from early March.358
825.
A specially
convened Cabinet at 1600 on 17 March 2003 endorsed the
decision to
give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to leave Iraq and to ask
the
House of
Commons to endorse the use of military action against Iraq to
enforce
compliance,
if necessary.
826.
Mr Blair
told his colleagues that he had called a meeting of Cabinet
because
“an impasse”
had been reached at the United Nations.359
827.
The Government
had tried its “utmost”, and had “tabled a draft …
resolution,
amended it,
and then been prepared to apply tests against which Iraq’s
co-operation
… could be
judged”. Although the UK had been “gathering increasing support
from
members of
the Security Council”, the French statement “that they would veto
a
357
Letter
Straw to Parliamentary Colleagues, 17 March 2003, [untitled]
attaching Statement, 16
March
2003, ‘A
Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi People’; Statement, 16 March
2003, ‘Commitment to Transatlantic
Solidarity’;
Paper FCO, 15 March 2003, ‘Iraqi-Non Compliance with UNSCR
1441’.
358
Command
Paper (CM 5785), 17 March 2003, ‘Iraq – UN Documents of early March
2003’.
359
Cabinet
Conclusions, 17 March 2003.
148