Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Asylum and Iraq.
Asylum
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) drew journalists’ attention to a Written Ministerial Statement today announcing language tests for asylum seekers whom we suspected might not be from the country they were purporting to be from. This scheme had been used widely in other European countries, such as Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. We were beginning a new month long pilot scheme in the UK and would test it on asylum seekers claiming to be from Iraq, although it should be noted that it was not related to the current situation.
Iraq
Asked whether the Prime Minister remained confident that he would be able to achieve a second UN Resolution, the PMOS said yes. Intensive diplomatic discussion was currently ongoing at all levels. The Prime Minister was continuing his latest round of international phonecalls today and was working flat out to meet his wish to achieve a second resolution. Questioned as to whether he was implying that the Prime Minister remained confident that he would get a majority in the Security Council or whether he remained confident that the Resolution would be passed and that none of the ‘veto wielders’ would actually use their veto, the PMOS said that France had sent a pretty clear signal last night of their intended position. Discussion was continuing as to how we could persuade a majority of the Security Council to support a UN Resolution. That was precisely why we were trying to build as much common ground and consensus as possible. He said he had no intention of predicting what the outcome of the discussions might be. He would simply make the point, however, that in a game of cards a lot of things were said before people declared their hand. At some point in the not-too-distant future, this matter would be put to a vote in the Security Council. At that time, people would have to put their cards on the table and only then would we really have an idea of where people stood. In the meantime, the Prime Minister was continuing to focus his attention on achieving a second Resolution and remained confident of being able to build the common ground he believed was necessary to move forward.
Asked when we were expecting the vote to take place at the UN, the PMOS confirmed that there wouldn’t be a vote today and added that he did not think it would be helpful to predict when it might be. It would be sooner rather than later. Put to him that the longer a vote was delayed, the closer we got to March 17, the PMOS said this was a fair point. At the moment, March 17 remained the only date which was set down in a draft Resolution, although, as Sir Jeremy Greenstock had noted this morning, there was nothing ‘magic’ about it. Over the last three days we had been indicating that, as part of our discussions with Security Council colleagues, we were prepared to listen to their views about this ‘deadline’. In the meantime, everyone was absolutely clear that Saddam only responded to the maximum amount of pressure put on him - and that meant having a tight deadline. Asked if we had an option not to table a second Resolution, the PMOS said that we continued to expect that this would be put to a vote.
Asked for a reaction to President Chirac’s comment in an interview last night that France would be prepared to use its veto at the UN, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had issued a response this morning. It was for the President of France to choose his words and to decide his country’s course. The Prime Minister had already stated his view that using a veto in any circumstance would essentially let Saddam Hussein off the hook. It was important to be clear what Resolution 1441 was about. It underlined the need for immediate and full compliance and co-operation and stated that ’serious consequences’ would follow if that did not happen. It was also important to be aware of what else the French President had said in his interview last night. According to a report from Reuters, he had commented that, "It is not for you or me to say whether the inspections are effective if Iraq is sufficiently co-operative - it is not, by the way, I will tell you that straight". Discussions about these issues were currently ongoing at the Security Council, as you would expect, and we were all working flat out to try to find common ground and build a consensus. It struck us as a little odd, therefore, that the French appeared to be suggesting that they would use their veto regardless of the way things turned out and how those discussions might conclude, at the very time they were acknowledging there was not sufficient co-operation.
Put to him that President Chirac had appeared to be making the point that he would not allow any Resolution to be passed which could be used as a pretext to justify the use of force at this stage and whether that meant that the phrase ’serious consequences’ was a justification for the use of force under international law given the differing positions different members of the Security Council were adopting on this matter, the PMOS said that he would not provide a precise legalistic definition of the term. That said, if Saddam was refusing to co-operate fully and immediately with the UN as he was required to do under Resolution 1441, and if a country which had signed up to the Resolution was refusing to back the option of military action, it begged the question of what they thought they had signed up to if not the use of force.
Asked whether the Attorney General had advised us whether the term ’serious consequences’ covered the option to use force under international law, the PMOS said that he had no intention of breaching the long standing convention of not revealing the advice we received from the Attorney General. Suffice to say that whatever action the Government took, it would be done in accordance with international law. The Prime Minister had been clear from the outset that we would do everything we could to resolve the whole issue of Iraq peacefully. We were doing all we could to build a consensus and the focus was currently on how we could set out clearly to Saddam Hussein what it was that he had to do in order to show that he had had a change of heart and attitude. It was important for people to be patient and wait and see how things moved forward. Everyone agreed that Saddam only responded to the maximum amount of pressure put on him. The point the Prime Minister had been making today was that if countries used their veto regardless of any consensus that was reached and regardless of Iraq’s response, it would let Saddam off the hook. Questioned further about France’s stance, the PMOS pointed out that France had always taken a different position on Iraq. For example, they had abstained in the vote on Resolution 1284 which had set up UNMOVIC in the first place. Asked whether we could act in accordance with international law and be in breach of the UN Charter, the PMOS said he was not a lawyer and would leave those judgements to those who had taken more college than he had.
Put to him that we would be letting Saddam off the hook if we continued to press for a timetable which no one else supported, thereby shattering the unity of the UN, the PMOS said that the discussions which were taking place at the moment were focussing on attempts to build common ground in the Security Council. Together with our colleagues, we were trying to come up with tests against which Iraqi compliance could be judged. Of course that did not mean we were suggesting Saddam had to disarm fully within timescale x. It did, however, mean applying tests against which members of the Security Council could assess whether Saddam had had a fundamental change of heart in his requirement to co-operate and disarm voluntarily, or not. For example, part of the discussions taking place were centring on the identification of a number of scientists who could be taken outside Iraq to be interviewed. There were also issues relating to what we already knew about Saddam’s WMD programme. The purpose of the proposal was to enable the Security Council to reach a judgement about whether Saddam was serious about fulfilling his international obligations. The Prime Minister believed that the idea was a logical consequence of Hans Blix’s ‘clusters’ document, published last Friday. It had been raised in discussions with others and he believed it was worth pursuing. It was perfectly possible for Saddam to show a change of will, attitude and heart within a matter of hours. It was important to recognise that no one was talking about authorising a process of endless procrastination, delay and game playing. Asked whether the proposal to codify benchmarks and tests would be tabled at the UN today, the PMOS said the deliberations might not necessarily conclude today. We would have to wait and see how things panned out.
Asked whether the tests would cover all the outstanding issues contained in Dr Blix’s ‘clusters’ document or whether only a few of the issues would be chosen to test Saddam’s compliance, the PMOS said that the plan was to use Dr Blix’s ‘clusters’ document as the foundation stone on which to base a number of tests which showed that Saddam had ‘come through the door’ on full compliance. If a judgement was made that he had had the necessary change of heart which was required to show he was co-operating in full, then, as the Prime Minister had underlined last night, it was clear that the issue of time was no longer as important because the inspectors could then have as much time as they wanted to disarm Saddam of his WMD. Asked if he was implying that the tests would not cover all the outstanding issues, the PMOS pointed out that the ‘clusters’ document contained over a hundred questions, so that would be unlikely. The Prime Minister had spoken to Dr Blix yesterday to discuss the proposal. Realistically, we were talking about a number of tests against which the Security Council would be able to make a judgement that Saddam was complying.
Asked whether the tests and benchmarks proposal was a British-led venture and not a US initiative, the PMOS said that the idea had emerged from the Prime Minister’s discussions with representatives of some of the elected members of the Security Council. Following on from Dr Blix’s ‘clusters’ document, it was thought that the idea would be useful to explore. Given we had jointly tabled a Resolution with the US and Spain, journalists could assume that whatever we were doing and saying and however we were proceeding, it was being done in concert with them.
Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister was still ‘too busy’ to know whether he had full confidence in Clare Short, the PMOS replied that we had said all we had to say about this matter yesterday. He had nothing further to add. Asked if he was really refusing to express the Prime Minister’s confidence in a member of his Cabinet, the PMOS said that his colleague had gone round the houses on this topic at great length yesterday. The position had not changed. The Prime Minister’s focus remained absolutely on working the phones, speaking to colleagues, and meetings European partners in order to try to find as much common ground and build as much of a consensus as we possibly could in helping secure a second Resolution. That was his priority.
Asked if the Prime Minister was surprised that Dr Blix had failed to mention the discovery of a pilotless drone in Iraq, the PMOS said we believed that this was certainly an issue which merited further investigation, particularly since this was not something which Iraq had declared in their incomplete declaration. As he understood it, the drone had been test-flown. As we had made clear in the document on WMD which we had published last September, we were concerned that unmanned aerial vehicles or remotely-piloted vehicles could be used to deliver chemical or biological weapons, for example. Dr Blix had said in his report to the UN on 7 March that this was part of his ongoing investigation. In the meantime, we remained concerned and, given Saddam’s past history, clearly had cause to be concerned.
Asked whether Cabinet had agreed to March 17 as a deadline, given Clare Short’s complaint that the timetable followed the US’s military timeframe rather than one we would prefer and that it was too short, the PMOS said that it had always been our view that the time that was needed was the time required to make a judgement as to whether Saddam was co-operating. That remained the case. Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister would focus again on domestic opinion if the vote on the second Resolution failed at the UN, the PMOS said he didn’t think it was particularly helpful to start speculating about the end result of the process before we had it. One thing no one could accuse the Prime Minister of not seeking to do was engaging in active discussion with members of the public - many of whom we had asked specifically to take part because they held a contrary view to his own. That had been the purpose of his Q&A session with twenty people yesterday for the ‘Tonight with Trevor MacDonald’ programme. He would continue to make the arguments because he believed absolutely in them.
Questioned as to whether there was anything else the UK and US could do, other than launch military action against Iraq, if the second Resolution was vetoed at the UN, the PMOS cautioned journalists against getting too far ahead of themselves. They key question was whether the UN meant what it said and whether its writ ran, or whether the Resolutions it passed contained empty words. Discussions were ongoing with our partners on the Security Council about finding common ground. These were important moments for the UN, primarily because of the signal that would be sent to other dictators if the international community failed to show resolve at a critical moment like this. Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the suggestion from the US Administration’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, that if the UN failed to vote for a second Resolution it would show that the UN had no moral authority, the PMOS said that people chose their own words. The Prime Minister believed absolutely that the UN had to mean what it said. Resolution 1441 had been passed unanimously last year. Given Saddam was obviously not complying with his obligations under the terms of the Resolution, as President Chirac himself had acknowledged yesterday, it was clear that the words of 1441 had to be taken seriously. Questioned as to why the Prime Minister would want the UN to be involved in a post-Saddam Iraq if the organisation was a ‘busted flush’, the PMOS said he would disagree in the strongest terms with the premise of the question. We were trying to ensure that the international community worked collectively in dealing with the issue of Iraq. As the Prime Minister had said, the UN would have an important role to play in any post-conflict scenario, should we get to that point.
Asked for a reaction to reports that only US companies would be involved in the reconstruction of Iraq, the PMOS said we had underlined that the UN would be involved in any post-conflict situation. All sorts of stories appeared in the media from time to time which alleged one thing or another. The important thing for people to recognise was the fact that we were not yet in a conflict situation, let alone post-conflict.
delicious
digg
facebook
