BRIEFING BY JACK STRAW
UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

November 7, 2002

With permission Mr Speaker I should like to make a statement about negotiations on a new UN Security Council Resolution on Iraq.

A revised draft Resolution was circulated to all members of the UN Security Council yesterday. The Council is now discussing the text and will vote on it shortly. A vote could come as early as tomorrow night. As we will prorogue later today, I wanted to update the House now the negotiations are entering their final stage.

Mr Speaker, I have placed a copy of the joint UK-US draft in the Libraries of both Houses.

Mr Speaker, as my RHF the Prime Minister reminded the House yesterday, our overriding objective is to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction through an effective inspections regime.

The Prime Minister and I have made the case for UN action here in the House, to our Allies and to the wider world. On 10 September, the Prime Minister told the TUC Conference that the UN had to be the means of dealing with this problem, not of avoiding it. Two days later, President Bush in his historic speech to the General Assembly said that the United Nations had either to enforce the writ of its own resolutions or risk becoming irrelevant. On 14 September, in the same forum, I called on the UN to meet the challenge posed by Iraq and to defend its own authority.

Mr Speaker, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the UK has been determined to ensure that the UN emerges from this crisis with its credibility enhanced. During the negotiations, our aim has been to secure consensus on a tough Resolution which leaves Iraq under no illusions about the need for disarmament.

The text currently before the Security Council is the product of eight weeks of intensive negotiations. The UK and US began to circulate elements of a draft Resolution to fellow Security Council members on 25 September, and a draft full text on 23 October. Throughout these two months the Prime Minister has spoken to President Bush and other Heads of Government at regular intervals. I have been in daily contact with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and I have had detailed discussions on numerous occasions with my French, Russian and Chinese counterparts and with Foreign Ministers of the elected 10 of the Security Council on numerous occasions. Our UN Ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, and his team have worked tirelessly in New York.

Mr Speaker, the draft Resolution uses the full powers of the UN under Chapter 7 of its Charter. The architecture of the draft has been extensively discussed between the Permanent Members. Let me set out for the House the key points.

First, the text makes clear in Operative Paragraph 1 that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under previous Security Council Resolutions.

Second, in Operative Paragraph 2, the text affords Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations.

Third, it stipulates [Operative Paragraph 4] that false statements or omissions in Iraq's declaration of its WMD holdings and failure by Iraq to comply with the Resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations, and provides that this will be reported to the Council for assessment.

Fourth, the text gives [Operative Paragraphs 5 – 9] significantly enhanced powers to the United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct effective, intrusive inspections. Honourable Members may be surprised by the level of detail in the Resolution. Our previous experience with Saddam Hussein has made this necessary. I would draw particular attention to these aspects of the Resolution:

• the provision for conducting interviews with Iraqi citizens inside or outside Iraq, without Iraqi government minders present;

• the explicit setting?aside of previous arrangements restricting access to so?called Presidential sites;

• provisions for freezing a site to be inspected so that nothing is changed within it nor taken from it while it is being inspected; and

• making legally binding the 'practical arrangements' set out by the inspectors themselves and covering issues such as regional bases, the right to encrypted communications and so on.

In sum, this is a basis for an inspection régime designed not to go through the motions, but to achieve disarmament.

The text sets out the procedure to be followed in the case of failure by Iraq to comply:

• it requires [in Operative Paragraph 4] that any further material breach of Iraq's obligations should be reported to the Council for assessment;

• it directs [in Operative Paragraph 11] the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director General of the IAEA to report immediately to the Council any interference by Iraq with their inspection activities or failure to comply with its disarmament obligations;

• it provides [in Operative Paragraph 12] that the Council will convene immediately upon receipt of a report of non?compliance in order to consider the situation.

On timing, the text provides that within seven days of adoption of the Resolution Iraq must confirm its intention fully to comply; within 30 days Iraq must submit a full and accurate declaration of all aspects of its WMD programmes; within 45 days inspections should resume; and within 105 days of the passing of the Resolution UNMOVIC and the IAEA should report to the Security Council.

The text concludes by underlining that Iraq has been repeatedly warned that it will face serious consequences as a result of continuous violations of its obligations. [Operative Paragraph 13]

I emphasise again that the detailed wording may change further in negotiation. Discussion will resume this afternoon in New York. But this draft Resolution meets the United Kingdom's objectives. It takes into account many points raised in the Security Council by other member states and by the chief inspectors, Mr Blix and Mr El Baradei. We are now seeking unanimous support for this Resolution in order to send the strongest message to Saddam Hussein.

Mr Speaker, Britain wants a peaceful resolution to this crisis; and the United States has shown, by its engagement in the long negotiations over the last weeks, that it too is committed to using the UN route to resolve this problem. Here, Mr Speaker, I would like to pay my own tribute to President Bush and US Secretary of State Powell for their great patience and their great statesmanship.

Mr Speaker, history tells us that if diplomacy is to succeed it must be combined with the credible threat of force. As Kofi Annan has said, with direct reference to Iraq: 'We have learned that sensitive diplomacy must be backed by the threat of military force if it is to succeed.' It is this threat which, in recent weeks, has forced Saddam to concede the prospect of readmitting weapons inspectors. The more credible the threat, the more likely it is that Iraq will respond to the demands of the UN.

Mr Speaker, as the negotiations at the Security Council enter their final stage, we are approaching a critical moment for the whole of the international community and for the integrity of our system of international law. By adopting this Resolution, the Security Council will send the clearest possible signal of its determination to uphold the authority of the United Nations. And we will be one step closer towards resolving a problem which has undermined the security of Iraq's neighbours, and the wider world, for over a decade.

The task of the inspectors is to find and to destroy the Weapons of Mass Destruction. The choice for Saddam Hussein is to comply with the UN or face the serious consequences.