Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq, Smallpox and EU Structural and Cohesion Fund.
Iraq
Asked if there was any significance in the Prime Minister’s use of the plural in stating in his MTV interview today that he would still consider going ahead with military action against Iraq without a second Resolution if ‘countries’ applied an unreasonable veto , the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the UK’s position had not changed. He pointed out that in the rest of the Prime Minister’s reply to the question that had been put he had also underlined once again his belief that a second Resolution would be achieved. This view was based on the fact that the UN had passed Resolution 1441 unanimously last November and it was clear that the Security Council would want to uphold that decision. Put to him that the Prime Minister had in the past only talked in the singular about one country’s ‘unreasonable veto’ and whether his departure from that today was significant, the PMOS suggested that journalists were in danger of ‘over-parsing’ hypotheticals. He reiterated the point that the Prime Minister believed a second Resolution would be upheld. Consequently, questions relating to the situation should that fail to happen were hypothetical.
Put to him that today’s change of phraseology was not indicative of a hypothetical situation inasmuch as the Prime Minister had spelled out in his recent Newsnight interview that he would be willing to go to war without a second Resolution in the face of an unreasonable veto (singular), the PMOS resolutely rejected the premise of the question and repeated that the issue was indeed hypothetical because of the Prime Minister’s strong belief that a second Resolution would be passed. Challenged that this view, of itself, was hypothetical, the PMOS said that it was what the Prime Minister believed. The argument had to be taken in stages. The first stage was a belief that a second Resolution would be passed. What happened after that was hypothetical. The PMOS added that he thought the testimony of the Iraqi students was probably the most significant thing to come out of the MTV interview. They had painted a real picture of life in Iraq and had explained vividly why, in their view, they wanted Saddam to go. Indeed, they felt so strongly about it that one of the students, Ammar Hassan, had agreed that his phone number be passed on to the media so that he could explain his views directly.
Asked to confirm categorically that the Prime Minister had not deliberately set out to refer to ‘countries’ in the plural, the PMOS said he was making the point that the Prime Minister was not signalling any change in his position, as his entire answer showed. He continued to believe that a second Resolution would be passed. Anyone who thought he had changed his position was ignoring reality. Pressed as to whether the word ‘countries’ had been a slip of the Prime Ministerial tongue, the PMOS said that he already answered the question. If people were reading any significance into the Prime Minister’s choice of words and honestly believed that he thought he was not going to achieve a second Resolution, then they were sorely mistaken. Put to him that he wasn’t answering the question being put, the PMOS repeated that nothing had changed in the substance. The Prime Minister continued to believe that he would get a second Resolution. Put to him that the fact that three countries were now threatening to use their Security Council vetoes was a perfectly adequate explanation for the Prime Minister’s change to plural usage today, the PMOS said that it was important for people to recognise that no one was voting for or against anything today. Reminding journalists that most of the predictions which had been made prior to 1441 had been 100% wrong, he urged them to be patient and wait for the process to move forward.
Asked if it was significant that, at the very time the Prime Minister had said what he had said in his MTV interview, Government sources had been briefing that a compromise Resolution would be tabled at the UN and that that was really was this was all about, the PMOS said that he had no intention of responding to unattributable briefings. He was the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman and he spoke on the record. As he had said this morning, there were ongoing discussions at the UN, as was perfectly normal in the run up to any Resolution. The fact of the matter was that the only Resolution on the table was the one which had been co-sponsored by the UK, US and Spain. Other people might have other ideas; that was a legitimate part of the UN process. And that was what it was: a process.
Asked if he could provide guidance on whether the draft Resolution would be voted on at the UN next week, the PMOS said no. Asked if Mike O’Brien had been right to suggest in his Newsnight interview last night that the vote could be in the next couple of weeks, the PMOS said that he answered this question this morning. The very phrase ‘one or two weeks’ allowed for a very large measure of manoeuvrability. In our experience, it was better to wait and see.
Smallpox
Asked if it was time for the Home Secretary to admit that he had made a mistake in the light of the ensuing confusion following his remark that he thought GPs should be able to administer the smallpox vaccine routinely if asked, the PMOS said that we had dealt with this issue earlier in the week. He had nothing further to add to what we had already said about the matter.
EU Structural and Cohesion Fund
Questioned about the implications of today’s announcement by the Chancellor and Patricia Hewitt regarding regional policy and the EU Structural and Cohesion Fund, the PMOS said that it had been a long-standing Government policy to promote the idea of subsidiarity if we thought it appropriate. Subsidiarity had been a well-established principle of ours for many years and it was important to find the right locus for decisions to be made at local level where appropriate.
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