Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Lord Robertson/Iraq, Liaison Committee and Asylum.
Lord Robertson/Iraq
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister had met Lord Robertson, Secretary General of NATO, this morning for a follow-up discussion after the NATO Summit in Prague last November. They had also taken the opportunity to discuss the ongoing war on terror and the situation vis-à-vis Iraq.
Asked if NATO had a role to play in the military build up in the Gulf, the PMOS said inasmuch as some of the different countries making military preparations were NATO members. There was a genuine desire for Saddam Hussein to be disarmed peacefully through an inspections process. Geoff Hoon was making a Statement today as a continuation of our prudent military planning to ensure that that process was backed up by the credible threat of force. We would have to wait and see how that unfolded. Hans Blix had returned to Baghdad and would be reporting to the Security Council on 27 January. Either way, Saddam would be disarmed. It was important for him to recognise the opportunity available to him, as well as the importance of these moments.
Asked if we believed reports from Iraq that Saddam Hussein would be more co-operative in terms of an ‘agreement’ between UNMOVIC and the Iraqis, the PMOS said that we would judge Saddam by his actions rather than his words. Given the history of deceit and obstruction that had characterised Iraq’s relationship with the weapons inspectors through the UNSCOM inspections process, our reluctance to celebrate a conversion to openness should come as no surprise. Hans Blix was someone in whom the Prime Minister had great faith and confidence and it was for him and his team of inspectors to test this apparently new development. It was a lot easier for someone to say they would co-operate than to actually do so. As Paragraph 4 of Resolution 1441 made clear, it was incumbent on Iraq not only to engage on process but to co-operate actively. That meant answering questions relating to concerns raised in 1999 by the predecessor regime, UNSCOM, and again by Dr Blix and Mohammed El-Baradei. We were not pre-judging the process, but it should come as no great surprise to anyone that we were being cautious in our response.
Asked again about the prospect of Saddam going into exile given the Chancellor’s comment last week that he should be punished, the PMOS said that it was important to understand the point the Chancellor had been making. He had said that if a dictator such as Saddam Hussein continued to flout the will of the international community, that should not go unpunished. There was a difference. In terms of the idea about Saddam going into exile, Jack Straw had answered that question on behalf of the Government this morning. From the outset, the Prime Minister had focussed his attention on ensuring that Iraq was disarmed of its WMD capability - and it was precisely because of this capability that the focus had not shifted from Iraq for the last thirteen years. We should not seek to jump to the next chapter before this chapter had concluded.
Asked if the Government had been in contact with any Arab states to ask for their help in exiling Saddam, the PMOS said that Jack Straw had indicated this morning that he had seen these reports which had emerged from countries in the Middle East. However, while it was perfectly legitimate to talk about other scenarios, our focus was on the disarmament of Saddam. Asked if the Government thought it helpful that the idea had been floated, the PMOS said that if different people were talking about different suggestions, that was a matter for them. There was no monopoly on briefings. Mr Straw had said this morning that if the alternatives were war or Saddam Hussein going into exile, then "most people would swallow hard and accept that was a fair trade". That said, there were a numbers of issues that would have to be taken into consideration before such an idea was even on the radar. If journalists felt he was being cautious on this as well, he thought it best that message was delivered in the region.
Asked if we saw this week as Saddam’s last opportunity to co-operate before next week’s intensive round of diplomatic activity, including Hans Blix’s report to the Security Council on the 27th, President Bush’s State of the Union Address and the Prime Minister’s visit, the PMOS pointed out that 27 January was not a deadline, although it was an important day. It was for Dr Blix and Dr El-Baradei to make judgements about the level of Iraqi compliance and report back to the Security Council. They were doing their job and we were not imposing any deadlines on them. Nevertheless, the world had been waiting a long time for Saddam to disarm and its patience was not endless. How that might happen remained a choice for Saddam himself to make. He still had an opportunity to co-operate actively either by showing to the satisfaction of the weapons inspectors that he had disarmed - if indeed that was the case - or by engaging actively with them in a process of disarmament. As we had said many times, the difference between this inspection regime and the previous one was that we had no intention of playing a game of protracted hide and seek with the Iraqi regime. There was a duty on them to comply actively with the inspectors. That didn’t just mean opening gates and co-operating on process. It meant engaging on the substance and, where questions were raised, answering them satisfactorily.
Liaison Committee
Asked what topics the Prime Minister would be quizzed on during his Liaison Committee session tomorrow morning, the PMOS said that the Committee had set out in their press notice that they would not be giving any advance warning of questions they might ask. In terms of general subjects that might be raised, it was for them to brief on that.
Asylum
Asked why Beverley Hughes had announced a U-turn on the purchase of hotels to house asylum seekers, the PMOS pointed out that the announcement related only to the situation in Sittingbourne, Kent. It did not affect the overall policy on induction centres. We still wanted to have an end-to-end process - induction, detention and removals - but the Home Office had acknowledged today that the processes in relation to Sittingbourne that should have been put in place to ensure a proper consultation with the local community, including the MP, had not been satisfactory. That was why they were undertaking an urgent review to consider how things could be taken forward from here. Questioned further, the PMOS repeated that the Government remained determined to set up induction centres. If there were wider lessons to be learned about how the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) should conduct their consultations in the future, they would of course be learned. On a more general point, the PMOS said that we were not being complacent about the challenges which asylum presented. This was a complex issue which countries all over the world were having to deal with. The problem was that we were in a situation where people wanted the ends but had concerns about the means. In this particular instance, it was clear that something had gone wrong in the consultation process, hence the review being undertaken. In the wider scheme of things, however, if people wanted to see the end-to-end reforms of the asylum system which were needed, they had to understand that it would require some difficult decisions and judgements.
Asked what the review might conclude, the PMOS said he had no intention of pre-empting its outcome. There was a specific problem concerning the Coniston Hotel in Sittingbourne which related to the way the consultation had been carried out there. That was why it was being reviewed. In the meantime, the whole issue of induction centres and the acquirement of buildings to house asylum seekers in a cost-effective way was continuing.
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