[March 25, 2002 memo from Jack
Straw (UK Foreign Secretary) to Tony Blair in preparation for Blair’s
visit to Bush’s Crawford ranch, covering Iraq-al Qaida linkage, legality
of invasion, weapons inspectors and post-war considerations.]
SECRET AND PERSONAL
PM/02/019
CRAWFORD/IRAQ
1 The rewards from your visit
to Crawford will be few. The risks are high, both for you and for the
Government. I judge that there is at present no majority inside the PLP
for any military action against Iraq, (alongside a greater readiness in
the PLP to surface their concerns). Colleagues know that Saddam and the
Iraqi regime are bad. Making that case is easy. But we have a long way
to go to convince them as to:
(a) the scale of the threat
from Iraq and why this has got worse recently:
(b) what distinguishes the
Iraqi threat from that of eg Iran and North Korea so as to justify
military action;
(c) the justification for any
military action in terms of international law: and
(d) whether the consequence of
military action really would be a compliant, law abiding replacement
government.
2 The whole exercise is made
much more difficult to handle as long as conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians is so acute.
THE SCALE OF THE THREAT
3 The Iraqi regime plainly
poses a most serious threat to its neighbours, and therefore to
international security. However, in the documents so far presented it
has been hard to glean whether the threat from Iraq is so
significantly differently from that of Iran and North Korea as to
justify military action (see below).
WHAT IS WORSE NOW?
4 If 11 September had not
happened, it is doubtful that the US would now be considering military
action against Iraq. In addition, there has been no credible evidence
to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida. Objectively, the threat from Iraq
has not worsened as a result of 11 September. What has however changed
is the tolerance of the international community (especially that of the
US), the world having witnesses on September 11 just what determined
evil people can these days perpetuate.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRAQ,
IRAN AND NORTH KOREA
5 By linking these countries
together in this "axis of evil" speech, President Bush implied an
identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in
terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work
will now need to be to delink the three, and to show why military action
against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North
Korea. The heart of this case" that Iraq poses a unique and present
danger - rests on the facts that it:
* invaded a neighbour;
* has used WMD and would use them again;
* is in breach of nine UNSCRS.
THE POSITION IN INTERNATIONAL
LAW
6 That Iraq is in flagrant
breach of international legal obligations imposed on it by the UNSC
provides us with the core of a strategy, and one which is based on
international law. Indeed, if the argument is to be won, the whole case
against Iraq and in favour (if necessary) of military action, needs to
be narrated with reference to the international rule of law.
7 We also have better to
sequence the explanation of what we are doing and why. Specifically, we
need to concentrate in the early stages on:
* making operational the
sanctions regime foreshadowed by UNSCR 1382;
* demanding the readmission
of weapons inspectors, but this time to operate in a free and unfettered
way (a similar formula to that which Cheney used at your joint press
conference, as I recall).
8 I know there are those who
say that an attack on Iraq would be justified whether or not weapons
inspectors were readmitted. But I believe that a demand for the
unfettered readmission of weapons inspectors in essential, in terms of
public explanation, and in terms of legal sanction for any subsequent
military action.
9 Legally there are two
potential elephant traps:
(i) regime change per se is
no justification for military action; it could form part of the method
of any strategy, but not a goal. Of course, we may want credibly to
assert that regime change is an essential part of the strategy by which
we have to achieve our ends - that of the elimination of Iraq's WMD
capacity; but the latter has to be the goal;
(ii) on whether any military
action would require a fresh UNSC mandate (Desert Fox did not). The US
are likely to oppose any idea of a fresh mandate. On the other side,
the weight of legal advice here is that a fresh mandate may well be
required. There is no doubt that a new UNSCR would transform the
climate in the PLP. Whilst that (anew mandate) is very unlikely, given
the US's position, a draft resolution against military action with 13 in
favour (or handsitting) and two vetoes against could play very badly
here.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF ANY
MILITARY ACTION
10 A legal justification
is a necessary but far from sufficient precondition for military
action. We have also to answer the big question - what will this action
achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything.
Most of the assessments from the US have assumed regime change as a
means of eliminating Iraq's WMD threat. But none has
satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how
there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better.
11 Iraq has had NO history of
democracy so no-one has this habit or experience.
(JACK STRAW)
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
25 March 2002
SECRET AND PERSONAL