BRIEFING BY JACK STRAW
UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

UK FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

December 19, 2002

QUESTION: Can you give us the grounds upon which we might justify going to war given that lying alone by Saddam is not enough?

JACK STRAW: Well the grounds for declaring that there's been a material breach are very clearly set out in the resolution which we and the Americans put together which was agreed by the Security Council on 8 November. And that requires that if there is to be what's called a further material breach there has to be full statement or omissions in the declarations and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of this resolution.

QUESTION: And that hasn't happened.

JACK STRAW: Not so far and let me make this clear: what we've got today is a further step in a very calm and deliberate process to try by every means possible to get Iraq to comply with its international law obligations peacefully and therefore and thereby to resolve this crisis in a peaceful manner.

Nobody wants war. We do not want war, the United States I am certain does not want war. But the paradox we've always been faced with here is this: that it is only by linking our very active diplomacy with a credible and increasing threat of force that there is any serious chance of ensuring the peaceful disarmament of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

QUESTION: You said in the House yesterday if Saddam persists in this obvious falsehood, that's to say not having given a full declaration in that document, it will become clear that he has rejected the pathway to peace laid down in resolution fourteen forty one. Geoff Hoon says something quite different from that doesn't he?

JACK STRAW: Not that I recall. I think Geoff has said exactly the same thing. I mean sometimes we use slightly different languages which just proves that we're different individuals.

QUESTION: But what he says is that there must not only be an obvious falsehood, there must be deliberate obstruction by Iraq. Now is that the case? Because if so it doesn't seem to fit with what you said yesterday?

JACK STRAW: No, the two are entirely consistent. The one thing that Geoff and I are absolutely accurate reporters on is what is contained in the resolution which after all we and the United States put ourselves together.

And we were clear when we described what was a further material breach which could be described as a trigger for military action that you had to have two limbs to this. One was a failure to disclose, another was failure in other ways by Iraq to cooperate.

What I've been talking about, and the Prime Minister was yesterday, was the fact that on the fact of it on a preliminary assessment of the declaration made by Iraq it looks as though they have not put in the complete full and accurate disclosure that they're required to.

And let me say how it's possible to arrive at this, even at this preliminary stage. Your listeners will recall that at the end of 1998 the previous inspectors called UNSCOM had to leave Iraq because they found the conditions in which they were trying to do the inspections impossible. UNSCOM made a final report to the United Nations Security Council in February of 1999 and in that final report they said that three thousand tonnes of precursor chemicals, three hundred and sixty tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agents including one and a half tonnes of very dangerous VX nerve agent, more than thirty thousand special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents and large quantities of growth media acquired for the use of production of biological weapons, including three times the amount of anthrax that Iraq had previously declared, that all those were unaccounted for.

Since then we've been saying to the Iraqis that UNSCOM knew that this was here. You haven't accounted for it. You have to account for it. It's a base line for these inspections. So that's one of the measures by which it's possible to determine whether there has been this full, accurate and complete disclosure.

QUESTION: Right, but just to be quite clear about that, they would have to come back, that is already a breach of sorts, right? That quite clearly if that material is not declared in the statement then that is what you describe as a falsehood. But my question is this, does there not then have to be in addition to that Hans Blix and his team saying and we have been obstructed and if he does not come back and say and we have been instructed, then there would not be war?

JACK STRAW: This is part of a continuing process. And it's quite interesting I thought in the rather breathless report from Andrew Gilligan that he's describing a cool, calm and diplomatic process and at the same time expressing some regret that British troops were not about to go to war tomorrow. That's true. And the United Nations Security Council resolution lays down a very clear, calm procedure which will lead up to a full discussion in Security Council on 27 January when Dr Blix and his colleague from the Atomic Energy Inspectors, Dr ElBaradei, will have to make a full first report on their activities of inspection.

Now what I suspect will happen at this afternoon's meeting of the Security Council is that the Security Council will receive a report from Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei. It's highly probable I mean, I'm anticipating this, that the inspectors will say as we're saying because it's pretty obvious look there are big gaps in this disclosure. Then there will be requirements by the Security Council or by the inspectors who've got the power themselves to say to the Iraqis you've now got to cooperate in a way you've not been cooperating in the past. We don't just mean cooperating to allow the, the weapons inspectors vehicles through. We mean cooperating to tell us, the international community, where the stuff is.

QUESTION: And, if they come back at the end of that process and say look we haven't been obstructed, then there is no question at all of war and that process may take quite a long time, may it not?

JACK STRAW: It's always been a process that may take a long time. The operational paragraph four which I've read out is very clear about what constitutes what constitutes a further material breach. Now you're also asking me who makes the final decision about that, and it's not a matter for the inspectors and never has been.

The initial consideration will be a matter for the Security Council, that's also clearly laid out in the resolution. And we've been through this before. What we would hope very much is that if there was the clearest evidence of a further material breach the Security Council would accept its responsibilities and then say that the will of the international community had to be enforced by all necessary means, which means military action.

If that was blocked and I know we've been round the houses on this, then we obviously have to reserve the right for what we call the Kosovo option, but our absolute clear preference is that if in that sad eventuality we believe that military action is the only way of enforcing the international order then that should be done by a second Security Council resolution.

QUESTION: Right, but you see the worry that a lot of people have is that you are asking the inspectors to prove something that perhaps they simply can not prove. In other words you are giving them an option which is bound to lead to war.

JACK STRAW: I understand that and I fully understand people's anxieties about this and people ought to be anxious about war. I'm anxious about the prospect of military action, so's the Prime Minister, so are the leaders of the American administration because innocent people get killed in war and you should only take military action as a last resort.

So I fully understand people's anxieties given all the reports that have been written about this, that people may think the US and the United Kingdom about to take five steps ahead of themselves and then go to war.

Well it isn't the case, and if for example the US had been determined to go quotes unilateral it would have done so, but it decided to go down the UN route. We've got an excellent Security Council resolution backed fifteen zero by the international community. What we're now seeing is this resolution being processed.

Now I'd just like to deal with your last point. Are we giving the inspectors a quotes impossible task? No we're not. The reason the inspectors are in Iraq and they're not in anywhere else is because we know for absolute certain that Iraq has had weapons of mass destruction and the ability to put them together and we know from their previous record that they've lied about this. So the inspectors have got a difficult task, but not an impossible one.