1.1 | UK
Iraq strategy 1990 to 2000
•
a ban on
the sale of arms to Iraq;
•
a naval
force in the Gulf with powers to intercept ships suspected of
breaching
sanctions;
•
military
forces of the US, the UK and other allies stationed in
neighbouring
countries
as a deterrent; and
•
efforts to
enforce the provisions set out in resolution 687 for the
destruction of
Iraq’s
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes, and of its
longer-
range
missiles, under the supervision of UNSCOM inspectors.
Those
elements are described in the following Sections.
45.
Sir Peter
Ricketts, FCO Director General Political 2001 to 2003, told the
Inquiry that
the purpose
of the UK’s policy was “containment” of “Saddam Hussein’s ambitions
to
redevelop
weapons of mass destruction but also containment of the threat
which Iraq
had posed
to the region”.13
46.
Sir Peter said
that containment had three strands. The first was sanctions,
where
the arms
embargo was the most effective element and sanctions on Iraqi oil
exports
and
revenues were handled through the complex machinery of the
Oil-for-Food
(OFF)
programme run by the UN. The second strand he described as an
“incentive”
strand
based on resolution 1284 (1999), which had offered the Iraqis a
deal whereby
sanctions
would be suspended 120 days after the Iraqis accepted the return of
weapons
inspectors
to Iraq. The third strand was deterrence provided by the
NFZs.
47.
On
10 April 1991, an NFZ was established north of the 36th
parallel, enforced by
US, UK and
French aircraft based at Incirlik in Turkey. The UK contribution,
Operation
HAVEN, also
involved the deployment of 3 Commando Brigade into northern
Iraq
until
mid-July. In a statement to Parliament on 15 April,
Mr Douglas Hurd, the Foreign
Secretary,
explained that the UK’s policy envisaged the creation of “temporary
safe
havens in
Iraq, in which UN officials can provide for the basic needs of
refugees and
monitor
their security until they can return to their homes in
safety”.14
The aim
was
“to create
places and conditions in which refugees can feel secure … We
support the
territorial
integrity of Iraq.”
48.
On
7 June, relief operations were handed over to the United
Nations High
Commission
for Refugees and by mid-July almost all the 400,000 Kurdish
refugees who
had fled
into the mountains in the Iraq-Turkey border region had returned to
their homes
or to the
camps constructed for them by coalition forces.
49.
On
24 July, Op Provide Comfort and Op HAVEN were replaced by
Operation
Provide
Comfort II, of which the UK contribution was Operation WARDEN. Its
primary
13
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, page 13.
14
House of
Commons, Official
Report,
15 April 1991, column 21.
33