The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
648.
Mr Campbell
wrote that a meeting of DOP took place on
15 December.262
Mr Cook
considered
that Mr Butler’s report was sufficient reason for action.
Mr Blair had given
explicit
authority for the UK to participate if the US decided to go ahead
with strikes.
649.
On
16 December, a spokesman for Mr Annan briefed the press
that, overnight,
Mr Annan
had received a telephone call from Mr Burleigh, who had
advised him that
US
personnel in Iraq were being asked to leave.263
Mr Butler
had also been advised
to withdraw
UNSCOM personnel, and had instructed them to do so.
650.
On the same
day, Dr ElBaradei informed the Council that he had
decided
IAEA
personnel should be “temporarily” relocated to Bahrain once UNSCOM,
“on
whose
logistic support IAEA activities in Iraq” depended, had decided to
withdraw
651.
During Prime
Minister’s Questions on 16 December, action against
Iraq
652.
Mr Hague
assured Mr Blair “of the full support of the Opposition for
the use of
military
action … provided that action has clear and achievable objectives”
and asked
whether
removing Saddam Hussein “must now be a prime objective of western
policy”.
653.
Mr Blair
responded that no-one who read Mr Butler’s report could
seriously doubt
its
conclusion that UNSCOM was unable to do its job properly, and that
it stated there
were
“greater restrictions now than previously”. The report detailed
“not merely the
obstruction”,
but the fact that it related to:
“…
documents, sites and personnel that would give a clue to the
whereabouts of the
weapons of
mass destruction and the capability to make them. It is not
obstruction
simply for
the sake of it, but a plan of deceit to prevent those weapons of
mass
destruction
from being located and destroyed.”
654.
Mr Blair
added that, if he was allowed to develop those weapons, Saddam
Hussein
would pose
a threat “not only to his neighbourhood but to the whole
world”.
655.
Subsequently,
in response to a question from Mr Tony Benn suggesting
that
military
action would be illegal and that he should take “an independent
view” rather
than do as
he was told by President Clinton, Mr Blair responded that the
question was
how to stop
Saddam Hussein building weapons of mass destruction. He added that
the
cease-fire
in 1991 had depended on the fulfilment of obligations accepted by
Iraq. The
262
Campbell A
& Stott R. The Blair
Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries.
Hutchinson, 2007.
263
UN Security
Council, 16 December 1998, ‘Press Briefing’.
264
UN Security
Council, 16 December 1998, ‘Letter dated 16 December 1998
from the Director General of
the
International Atomic Energy Agency addressed to the President of
the Security Council’ (S/1999/1175).
265
House of
Commons, Official
Report,
16 December 1998, columns 959-960.
146