9.2 | 23
May 2003 to June 2004
was
adopted.595
There were
some shared concerns about French and Russian support
for the
resolution.
1066.
Mr Blair
also reported positively on moves to provide media support to the
new
Iraqi Prime
Minister, and suggested that more Iraqi voices speaking positively
about
what the
Coalition had achieved, and planned to achieve, were
needed.
1067.
In the next
video conference with President Bush, on 30 May, Mr Blair
hoped that
the new
resolution, which made clear that full sovereignty was being
transferred, could
be tabled
on 1 June, and voted on a day or two later.596
The
resolution should not include
the
necessity for the sovereign Iraqi Government to ‘opt in’ to the
continued presence
of the MNF
after the election. Ideally, members of the Interim Government
should be
present in
New York as the resolution was discussed.
1068.
Mr Blair
said that he intended to speak to Lt Gen Petraeus, as the
Iraqiisation of
security
was critical.
1069.
Sir Nigel
Sheinwald called Dr Rice to follow up the
discussion.597
It was
clear
that
President Bush was pushing for the resolution to be tabled
swiftly.They agreed to
suggest to
Ambassador Bremer/Mr Richmond that the new Iraqi Prime
Minister might be
prompted to
call for a swift Security Council resolution soon after his
appointment.
Sir John
Sawers told the Inquiry that:
“… spring
of 2004, March, April, May, was one of the low points in managing
Iraq
policy at
the London end. We had … the crises in Fallujah first … We had the
crisis in
Najaf. We
had the Abu Ghraib facilities …
“I visited
Iraq in early May and it was the gloomiest and most downbeat visit
that I
paid … And
I think it was then that we realised the scale of the task ahead of
us and
the need to
really put our heads down and be in it for the longer term, because
the
insurgency
and violence was clearly not at a peak and it was clearly going to
get
worse at
that stage. And the Abu Ghraib issues just added another nasty
twist to the
difficulties
that we faced.”598
Sir John’s
view of spring 2004 as a significant moment for the Coalition was
shared by
Lord
Turnbull, who told the Inquiry:
“For me,
the turning point in all this was the capture and the murder and
the burning
of the
American engineers [in Fallujah] and then their bodies are hung up
on the
595
Letter
Quarrey to Owen, 26 May 2004, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s VTC with
Bush, 26 May’.
596
Letter
Rycroft to Adams, 30 May 2004, ‘Prime Minister’s conversation with
Bush, 30 May’.
597
Letter
Sheinwald to Adams, 30 May 2004, ‘Iraq: conversation with US
National Security Advisor’.
598
Public
hearing, 16 December 2009, page 53.
381