STRAW: 'WE MUST FURTHER INCREASE THE
PRESSURE ON SADDAM'

STATEMENT BY JACK STRAW
UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

UK HOUSE OF COMMONS

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

March 10, 2003

With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Iraq and Israel/Palestine.

On Friday last, 7 March, I attended a Ministerial meeting of the Security Council in New York, the fourth such since late January. I have placed copies in the Library of the House of the Chief Inspectors' latest reports, together with the text of the speech which I gave to the Council, and a copy of the amended second resolution of which the UK is a co-signatory.

The Security Council's meeting on Friday took place four months after the adoption of SCR 1441. This gave Iraq a 'final opportunity' to comply with a series of disarmament obligations. Significantly, during the hours of intensive debate last Friday, not a single speaker claimed that Iraq was in compliance with those obligations. Neither did a single speaker deny that Iraq has been in flagrant breach of international law for 12 years.

Mr Speaker,
Dr El Baradei's and Dr Blix's reports were about the continuing work of the inspectors. I pay tribute to them and to their teams.

(i) The International Atomic Energy Agency

As the House will be aware, nuclear facilities are intrinsically more difficult to construct and less easy to conceal than facilities for producing biological or chemical weapons. Dr El-Baradei reported that 'after three months of intrusive inspections, the IAEA had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.' That is welcome.

(ii) UNMOVIC

As for UNMOVIC on the other hand, Dr Blix reported movement in some limited areas: for example, the partial destruction of prohibited Al Samoud missiles. This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg of Iraq's illegal programmes.

The full extent of that iceberg was revealed in a document compiled by UNMOVIC entitled 'Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes' which was made publicly available late on 7 March. I have also placed copies of this document in the Library of the House. I commend it to all Hon. Members. It sets out, in 173 pages of painstaking detail, the terrible nature of the weapons Saddam has sought with such determination to develop. It is a chilling catalogue of evasion and deceit, of feigning cooperation while in reality pursuing concealment.

The sheer scale of Iraq's efforts to develop these weapons and to hide them can only be grasped by reading the whole document, with great care. But, from 29 separate sets of unresolved issues, let me give the House one illustration. Anthrax: easily inhaled: the death rate in humans on untreated victims may be 90% or more. Only tiny amounts are needed to inflict widespread casualties. Contrary to Iraqi assertions, the inspectors found evidence of anthrax where Iraq had declared there was none. Again, contrary to Iraqi assertions, UNMOVIC believes there is a strong presumption that some 10,000 litres of anthrax were not destroyed in the early 1990s and may still exist (P.98). Iraq also possesses the technology and materials to allow it to return swiftly to the pre-1991 production levels.

Mr Speaker,
Let me now deal with the issues of inspections and more time. I recognise the temptation to believe that the inspections are working and all that is needed is more time. But Saddam is the master of playing for time.

Frankly, as anyone can see from reading the UNMOVIC document, to continue inspections with no firm end date will not achieve the disarmament required by the Security Council. This is the suggestion in the recent Memorandum from France, Germany and Russia. But, as the memorandum acknowledges, this cannot be achieved without Iraq's full, active and immediate cooperation.

Mr Speaker, Once more last Friday, the Iraqi Permanent Representative to the UN claimed that Iraq had no more weapons of mass destruction. It's the same old refrain we've heard from the regime for the past 12 years. Yet whenever the inspectors have caught them out, the regime has first protested, then conceded the point, but then mendaciously claimed that there is no more.

So the choice before us is whether we stand firm on our objective of disarmament: or settle for a policy which in truth allows Saddam to rebuild his arsenal under cover of just enough co-operation to keep the inspectors tied down for years to come.

Let us not deceive ourselves. The alternative proposals before the Security Council amount to a return to the failed policy of so-called containment. But the truth is that containment can never bring disarmament, nor is it the policy of the United Nations, as expressed in Resolution 1441.

Mr Speaker,
Dr Blix reported on some further recent activity by Iraq, in respect mainly of the Al Samoud missiles. What has caused it? It is not our policy that has changed. Nor international law. Nor diplomatic pressure. The only thing that has changed is the willingness of the United States and the United Kingdom to deploy their armed forces for the sake of achieving the objectives set by the United Nations.

The reality is that Saddam responds only to pressure. And the clear conclusion to draw from this is that we must further increase the pressure on him. We must put him to the test.

The government has made plain all along its desire to secure a peaceful outcome to this crisis. It's for this reason that I took the initiative in the Security Council last Friday to circulate a revised version of the UK/US/Spain draft second Resolution. This specifies a further period beyond the adoption of the Resolution for Iraq to take the final opportunity to disarm. Negotiations on its detail have continued over the weekend. We are examining whether a list of defined tests for Iraqi compliance would be useful in helping the Council to come to a judgement.

What we are proposing is eminently reasonable. We are not expecting Saddam to have disarmed in a week or so; but to demonstrate by that time the full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation demanded of him by successive UN resolutions since 1991.

I profoundly hope that the Iraqi regime will, even at this late stage, seize the chance to disarm peacefully. The only other peaceful alternative would be for Saddam Hussein to heed the calls of a number of other Arab leaders, to go into exile and hand over to a new leadership prepared to conform with the Security Council's demands. But if it refuses to co-operate then the Security Council must face up to its responsibilities.

In the event that military action does prove necessary, then the international community will have a duty to build a secure, prosperous future for the Iraqi people. Last Thursday I met the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, to discuss the humanitarian situation and the involvement of the United Nations in any reconstruction of Iraq. At that meeting, I proposed that the UN should take the lead role in co-ordinating international efforts to rebuild Iraq; and that this should be underpinned by a clear UN mandate.

. . .

Mr Speaker,
A lasting settlement in the Middle East would remove one great threat to security in the region and the wider world. In confronting the danger from Iraq's weapons, the UN can remove another.

Irrespective of the choice the Iraqi regime makes, we must not let Saddam turn his 'final opportunity' to disarm into endless opportunities to delay. If he refuses to disarm peacefully, then the only sensible course for the international community is to compel him to do so by force.