BRIEFING BY JACK STRAW
UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

October 23, 2002

Excerpts

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QUESTION:

I wonder if the UK shares the Bush Administration's growing frustration with the length of time it is taking to get a Resolution at the United Nations on Iraq?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I'm a very patient man. Of course, we would have liked this to have been resolved earlier, but these negotiations have been going on intensively for the past almost six weeks now since President's Bush's important and welcome speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 12 September. The negotiations continue as you know. There was a further meeting of the P5 [the permanent five representatives of the Security Council] last night and towards the afternoon I shall be talking to our Ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, about those negotiations.

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QUESTION:

.... of sending the wrong signals to Saddam Hussein, this is number one. Secondly, the Americans said last night that they were not going to wait for ever. How are you going then to abandon the UN course and take action, both you and the Americans, as you hinted a few days ago?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Well, the international community can't wait for ever. Where we have got to, not least because of the focus placed on Iraq earlier in the year, and particularly since President Bush's speech to the General Assembly on 12 September, is that there is now widespread understanding and agreement across the international community about the evil nature of the Iraqi regime and particularly its flagrant breach of a succession of United Nations' decisions in international law that Iraq must give up its weapons of mass destruction. Now we cannot wait for ever to deal with those. I do not believe we shall have to, and although the negotiations have been painstaking as ever over such an issue, they have also so far been constructive.

QUESTION:

... all the nations are working very hard towards combating terrorism, for example preparing war against Saddam Hussein. How would you describe the efforts that should be parallel, to combat the causes of these terrorist acts?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Let's be clear about this. There is no reason, excuse or justification for terrorism, full stop. Let us be very clear about this, and in my view those who seek to justify terrorism in the name of some political cause actually undermine the legitimacy of that cause. We all understand that of course the terrorists seek to exploit environments and to convince naïve people about the fact that there path is the only one. It isn't ever the only path and of course we seek to deal with injustices and the environments in which terrorism may breed and that is, for example, why we are giving such backing to the work of the quartet (the EU, UN, the Russian Federation, and the United States) to produce a road-map to ensure that the United Nations Resolutions 242, 338, 1397 and the others in respect of Israel-Palestine are implemented and implemented in full.

QUESTION:

Could you explain Britain's present position on the UN Resolutions? Do you agree with the United States' draft position as it is reported for undisclosed consequences if there is non-compliance?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

We support the United States' draft. It is a draft and as ever there is bound to be a negotiation. But, do we support the draft? Yes we do. And I have always said very clearly that what is essential here is that we send out the toughest and clearest message in the first Resolution. Nobody wants military action against Iraq. It is far preferable for the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to be effected by peaceful means, but the best chance we have of effecting that disarmament of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction by peaceful means is to make absolutely clear what the alternative will be, and that is what we have been working towards.

QUESTION:

On the draft ... that it also contains issues that goes from the Kuwaiti prisoners to the Marshland in Iraq, don't you think that this will make it even more difficult for the draft to be approved?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

With great respect, I think it is entirely right that in what are called the preliminary paragraphs, we should recite all the breaches of the United Nations law. The United Nations, not the United States, or the United Kingdom law, the United Nations law. And let's be clear about this - because his Human Rights record is appalling - there were 605 Kuwaiti prisoners of war. Saddam Hussein was under a clear obligation, going back to the early 1990's, to disclose not to Kuwait, but to the International Commission of the Red Cross, the details of what had happened to those 605 and over the last 11 years the Iraqis have flagrantly refused to disclose any details except in respect of 3 of those 605. Now, it is therefore entirely right that Iraq's breach in that respect should recited. But if you come to the operational paragraphs, their focus is plainly on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and we accept and acknowledge that these other breaches have to be dealt with in other ways.

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QUESTION:

Inaudible

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Our position has always been clear. We would have preferred there to be a single comprehensive resolution, but we have never ruled out two. As to what is agreed at the United Nations that remains to be seen.

. . .

QUESTION:

... The Americans have made clear that they are growing impatient with the negotiations. How much time is there before the Americans decide to walk away from them?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

We are all committed to the negotiations. We do not want them to fail and the President of the United States has invested great faith in the United Nations machinery to seek a clear resolution of this flagrant breach by Iraq of international law laid down by the United Nations itself and I can't put an exact time scale on this, but we hope, and even more are working intensively for a positive result.

QUESTION:

Do you not recognise that if the inspectors go in, the prospect of military action is going to be postponed possibly for another year?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Well, I don't want to speculate about that. What I recognise is this, that Saddam has been posed with a very clear choice for quite a long time which is that either he complies with these Resolutions or he has to face the consequences. And I just say this, the only reason why we have had such movement as there has been from the Iraqi regime over the last 2 months is as a result of the widespread consensus in the international community about his failure and the possibility that force may be used, and as Kofi Annan has said sometimes diplomacy has to be backed by the credible use of force, and if ever there was a case for this it is here.

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