THE ROAD TO WAR

A special documentary
Presenter: Edward Stourton
Producers: Mark Savage and Mark Alden
Editor: Nicola Meyrick
MUSIC: PHILIP GLASS. Glassmasters. Disc 1 The
Window of Appearances Akhnaten, Act 1: iii. Produced by
Kurt Munkacsi with Michael Riesman.
SM3K 62960.
COLIN POWELL (7/03/03) : The clock continues to tick,
and the consequences of Saddam Hussein's continued refusal
to disarm will be very very real.
GEORGE W. BUSH 29/01/02: History has called America
and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and
our privilege to fight freedoms fight.
TONY BLAIR (11/03): There is no way that Iraq will make
any concession or co-operate in any way without the threat of
force being there.
STOURTON: The road to this war began on February
28th 1991.
The sound of small arms echoing over Kuwait City. We
were woken by the same sound in Baghdad that morning so strong was the expectation that the Americans would
press home their advantage that most of us thought they
were moving into the City. But the guns were being fired
in celebration, not in anger - George Bush senior had
taken a decision that would come back to haunt his son.
BUSH SENIOR (28.02.91) effects celebration Kuwait.
Kuwait is liberated. Iraqs army is defeated. Our military
objectives are met. This war is now behind us. Ahead of us is
the difficult task of securing a potentially historic peace.
STOURTON: The debates that have so bitterly divided
nations, parliaments and international institutions over
the past few months are an eerie echo of the discussions
which were going on in coalition capitals during those last
few hours of war in 1991.
How much slaughter could the world take? Did the UN
resolutions so painstakingly won in New York allow for a
push for Baghdad? What would the Americans do with
Saddam if they caught him, and who would rule the
country in his place? And what unimaginable impact
could it all have on the region? As the Presidents
Assistant Secretary of State, Bob Kimmit was at the heart
of it. Why didnt they finish the job?
KIMMIT: Number one, we had put together a coalition based
on a UN security Council resolution that called for ejecting
Iraq from Kuwait and restoring regional peace and security.
We were living up to that commitment. Secondly we had
made clear that we were not going to fire on retreating

troops. Third there was no guarantee that we could have

found Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and lastly - lets assume
that we had finished the job - captured or killed Saddam
Hussein. Who would have been in charge of Iraq, of
Baghdad, of traffic control the next day. It would have been
the United States and the coalition as what? protectors or
occupiers of the country. So I think looking back
fundamentally we had very specific war aims. Once we
achieved those, the same president who had to make the
difficult decision to go to war had to make the difficult
decision to stop it.
BUSH SENIOR (28.02.91): It was not only a victory for
Kuwait but victory for all the coalitin partners. This is a
victory for the United Nations, for all mankind, for the rule of
law and for what is right.
STOURTON: But it quickly became apparent that
Saddam was far from finished, and the journey to Gulf
War Two began within weeks of the end of Gulf War One.
Fired up by Bush the fathers call for a change of regime,
the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in the south
rebelled. Saddam crushed both mercilessly. Lord Powell
Charles Powell as he was then watched this act of the
drama unfold from John Majors side in Number Ten. He
was the Prime Minsters foreign affairs adviser.
CHARLES POWELL: With all the benefit of hind-sight it is
clear that the immediate post war situation was not handled as
well as it could have been. There were already two
conflicting objectives. One was to see the end of Saddam
Hussein and his ghastly regime. And I must say, we did feel
that, after military defeat of the scale of which he suffered, it
was unlikely that he would survive and that his own people
would turn against him, his own armed forces would turn
against him and he would be expelled, or even eliminated.
But equally there was a deep concern to maintain the
territorial integrity of Iraq. Thats not a light matter. You
may say that we had no obligations to Iraq; it had broken
international law by invading Kuwait, why did we have to
worry about the future size and shape Iraq? But the answer I
think is clear; that in that tumultuous part of the world, to
have imposed on top of all the other tensions and strains, the
difficult relationship with Iran, the unsettled problems
between Israel and Palestine, to have imposed a disintegrating
Iraqi state would only have added to the troubles.
STOURTON: The Americans and the British responded
to the crushing of the Kurdish rebellion by setting up a
safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq. It was the first
real example of military intervention in the affairs of a
sovereign state on strictly humanitarian grounds.
No fly zones and sanctions were put in place the
containment of Saddam was the objective. But the Iraqi
crisis rumbled on as a sore on the international scene
throughout the 1990s Saddam Hussein played a game of
cat and mouse with the weapons inspectors, and from time
to time British and American planes enforcing the no-fly

zone dropped more bombs to make a point.

IRAQI TRANSGRESSIONS MEDLEY:
Allied bombing of Iraq
NEWS: More than a hundred UN inspectors were pulled out
of the country after a report by senior weapons inspector,
Richard Butler, said Iraq was obstructing their work.
BUTLER: Tell us the truth and let us verify it honestly.
AZIZ: They know it very well. They know that all weapons
of mass destruction have been totally eliminated.
STOURTON: It is fashionable hawk talk now to
describe the Bush senior ceasefire as merely an
interruption of the war. By the middle of the 1990s a
group of Republican conservatives, exiled from power
under the Clinton presidency, was agitating for renewed
action. One of the most prominent was the man now
directing operations from the Pentagon Donald
Rumsfeld.
RUMSFELD: I think that over a period of 12 years, or if you
want to go back a few years, 8 years, an awful lot of people in
the world did come to the conclusion that he, as a regime
leader, was an unlikely candidate to decide that it was in his
country's interest and his interest to voluntarily disarm. And
that's the reason that in 1998 the Congress of the United
States, Republicans and Democrats alike, passed legislation
calling for a regime change.
STOURTON: When George Bush Junior brought the
White House back into the Bush family, the hawks on
Iraq came back into power with him; Douglas Feith and
Paul Wolfowitz along with Donald Rumsfeld at the
Pentagon, Dick Cheney in the Vice Presidents Office.
Then came that defining moment for America and the
world.
Sound effects Twin Towers
STOURTON: In the ten days that followed the attacks of
September 11th all the basic elements of the logic which
has led us to where we are tonight, were put in place.
The Bush Doctrine which has since been developed into
a highly interventionist theory of military action was
articulated that very first evening, when the President
addressed the American people from the Oval Office. Just
before he went on the air he talked through his script with
his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
RICE: The President was very early on convinced that this
was something that was global, that it was New York and
Washington that had been hit, but that it could be
anyplace. He believed, and we talked about the fact that we
needed to be able to show and to let people know that, even
on the night that we'd been attacked, that we believed this was
global and this was something that we shared with other
freedom-loving people. We talked about the one line that
probably was the most important line, which was that if you
harbor a terrorist, then you will share their fate. Because that

was really the core of what journalists later called the Bush
Doctrine. Not just the terrorists, but that they're state
sponsored, those who harbored them, those who were
unwilling to go after them also had to be dealt with.
President Bushs address to Joint Session of Congress and
the American People. United States Capitol,Washington,
D.C: We will pursue nations that provide a safe haven for
terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision
to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
(Applause.)
STOURTON: By the time George Bush delivered that
powerful and at the time overwhelmingly popular
message to the joint Houses of Congress on September
20th, another critical building block in the international
architecture of todays crisis was in place; the formidably
close alliance between the President and Tony Blair. The
Prime Minister was in the audience that night on Capitol
Hill already convinced of the long term implications of
September 11th.
BLAIR: I thought instinctively right from the beginning that
it was going to be huge, that it would be a defining moment
for American foreign policy, and their attitudes towards the
world, but also that it presented a momentous challenge to the
world at large because it was clear that this was directed at
America, but at America as a symbol of the western world and
the values we held and there was no doubt in my mind, one
that we had to stand very, very closely with America, that
America should realise straight away that it wasn't alone in
such a situation, and two that we should regard this an act as
if it was an attack on any of us, and all of us.
[up applause from under]
President Bushs address to Joint Session of Congress and
the American People. 2100 United States
Capitol,Washington, D.C.: This is not, however, just
Americas fight. And what is at stake is not just Americas
freedom. This is the worlds fight. This is civilisations
fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and
pluralism, tolerance and freedom.
STOURTON: At the time everyone assumed that the
Presidents principle target in those bellicose rhetorical
flights was al Qaeda, along with its Afghan hosts, the
Taliban. But Iraq was already on the agenda. This was
the American Secretary of State Colin Powell , speaking
that same night little more than a week after the attacks
in Washington and New York.
COLIN POWELL 20/09/01: Iraq is a country we have had
on our list of nations that sponsor terrorism. It's an enemy we
keep well-contained with strong support of our British friends
and others. We have contained them for 10 years and we will
continue to do so. We will watch them, we have hit them
before and it it's necessary we will do what is necessary."
STOURTON: The moderate tone is deliberate - we now
know that at that stage Mr Powell was already locked in a

battle within the Administration about whether Iraq

should be hit in the immediate aftermath of September
11th; Paul Wolfowitz was pushing the case hard with the
president. This time the prize went to Colin Powell and his
allies Richard Armitage is his number two at the state
department and his closest political soul mate.
ARMITAGE: At that stage there was a lot of talk about it
because of the of the historic predilection of Iraq for
terrorism, and we had some preliminary information about
some possibility of an al-Qaida tie-in. We have not in our
investigation since then found large doses of al-Qaida in Iraq,
but we are attentive to it.
STOURTON: That was Richard Armitage talking last
April when it was already clear where Americas policy
was heading, but not quite how it was going to get there.
America looked hard for evidence connecting Al Quaeda
and Iraq, and never really found much . But in the post
September 11th world that didnt matter; Iraq was a
target as much because of what it might do, as for what it
had done in the past. John Bolton is the Under Secretary
of State for Arms Control the State Departments
specialist in weapons of mass destruction.
BOLTON: The policy of the administration had long since
been that regime change in Baghdad was what was necessary
because of the continuing threat that Saddam Hussein posed
to his neighbours and to us and our friends and allies and
interest in the region. I think the question of direct Iraqi
support for al-Qaeda was less important then and is less
important now than the overall threat that Iraq poses. (But
you say it had always been policy the rhetoric went up a
notch or two at the very least during that period didnt it?) I
think our preparations also began to proceed and move ahead.
We were working on two tracks: one was the regime change
track, the other was the reintroduction of UN weapons
inspectors into Iraq.
US STATE POMP / MARCHING
STOURTON: The aftermath of September 11th had
changed something else too. Anger and determination
turned to self-confidence even triumphalism, perhaps
when the doomsayers who predicted a military disaster in
Afghanistan were proved wrong. The fall of Kabul was
achieved with what in retrospect looks like almost
nonchalant ease, and a new optimism was abroad in the
land. Sir Christopher Meyer was Britains ambassador
during the Afghan crisis.
MEYER (SPEAKING in April 02) : The United States is, is
always a pretty self-confident nation. I think they have taken
enormous pride from the way in which they've conducted
their military operation there. I think they've taken enormous
pride from the way in which president Bush has risen to the
challenge. I think a very great measure of self-confidence has
shot through the system here like, like adrenaline. (dangers in
that, the self-confidence?) yes but where's the line? Where's
the line between self-confidence and over-confidence? There

is a tendency in Europe to criticise the Americans when they

don't show leadership, and to criticise the Americans when
they do show leadership. Just as the Americans tend to
criticise the Europeans when they don't get their act together,
and when they do get their act together, and this is just a kind
of mutually assured schizophrenia which we have to manage.
STOURTON: When the President rose to address the
Joint Houses of Congress in January last year he was
bathed in the after-glow of victory in Afghanistan. Whats
more, until this moment, he had succeeded in sustaining
perhaps the broadest coalition of support which America
has ever enjoyed for its foreign policy. Then came a
memorable phrase, and a very direct warning that Iraq
was next on the agenda.
BUSH 30/01/02: Iraq continue to flaunt its hostility toward
America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to
develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over
a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to
murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of
mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime
that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the
inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from
the civilised world. States like these, and their terrorist allies,
constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the
world.
STOURTON: There were three states on the axis of evil
Iran and North Korea as well as Iraq. But there was no
doubt about which was the presidents principle target.
And as to that striking phrase, axis of evil Richard
Armitage.
ARMITAGE: The thinking was that here's a state which has
had, like Iran and like North Korea, a historic affection for
terrorism; here is a state, like Iran and North Korea, that seeks
to develop weapons of mass destruction; here is a state, like
Iran and North Korea, which is an implacable enemy of the
United States; and here is a state, like Iran and North Korea,
who also is an implacable foe of our allies. And when you
look at it through that lens, you see it's a pretty narrow club,
which consists of three members, and the President named
them. We were actually quite surprised that the words "axis
of evil" brought forth some sturm und drang it seemed so
patently obvious to the naked eye as to not be worthy of much
comment.
STOURTON: Much of Europe reacted with dismay the
Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was one of the rare voices on
this side of the Atlantic which supported the President this
time too.
BLAIR: I mean this echoed something I said literally three
days after 11 September when I made my first Statement to
the House of Commons. I said the next issue on the agenda is
weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt about that in
my mind at all. This is a wake up call.
BUSH 29/01/02: History has called America and our allies to
action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to

fight freedoms fight.

Applause
STOURTON: But many of the members of that
remarkable coalition, which had been built on shared
revulsion against terrorism, were not prepared to sign up
to this new American ambition. The cracks began to
show, as China, Russia and the nations of the Middle East
expressed their anxiety with varying degrees of directness.
MEDLEY: AMBASSADOR WANG YING-FAN We have
made it clear when we talk about nations we would not use
such language. AMBASSADOR SERGEI LAVROV We
don't believe that this is the way to fight terrorism. CROWN
PRINCE ADVISOR ADEL AL-JUBEIR: That was the
view of the United States, we don't share it.
STOURTON: The UN Secretary General himself, Kofi
Annan, usually the most discreet of diplomats, was
provoked into direct criticism of that phrase axis of evil,
which became a kind of touchstone for the new American
assertiveness.
ANNAN: The statement came out of the blue from my point
of view, although I knew the US position towards those three
countries, but then when countries get branded that way, it
does complicate relationship and also the possibility of
influencing them.
STOURTON: And, critically, it is now clear, the French
began to edge away from Washingtons position Hubert
Vedrine was the French Foreign Minister at the time of
the axis of evil speech.
VEDRINE: On the phraseology I have nothing to say, but
what I had the opportunity to say the first time at the UN and a
second time in Paris in February, was that what would be
dangerously simplistic would be to lump together all the
world's problems in the single fight against terrorism and thus
forget all the other problems that exist.
STOURTON: During the spring and early summer of
2002 the thinkers and the planners in Washington were
developing the intellectual framework for Americas
newly assertive policy. Richard Haas is in charge of longterm strategy at the State Department this was his
interpretation of the axis of evil speech a year ago.
.
HAASS: What the President was doing was essentially
putting down a marker. It was a way of saying you will not
be permitted to constitute a massive threat to us; we are not
going to wait, to put it bluntly, for new versions of September
11th where we had to deal with the consequences of some
rogue regime by itself or working through some terrorist
intermediary; we are not going to essentially simply wait for
the day to once again exercise the right of self-defence. Selfdefence may be necessary, but it's certainly not ideal. What
we are looking for are ways of preventing or pre-empting
these kinds of attacks on the United States or anyone else.
STOURTON: Before long the idea of pre-emptive self

defence was official administration policy. The Bush

Doctrine outlined on the night of attacks of September 11th
had become something even more radical. When George
Bush addressed cadets at the West Point Academy he said
that a threat alone was enough to justify military action
by the worlds only superpower.
BUSH (WEST POINT SPEECH): We cannot defend
America and our friends by hoping for the best We cannot put
our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties, and then systematically break them. If
we wait for threats to fully materialise, we will have waited
too long.
STOURTON: And the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was
becoming more and more firmly anchored to American
policy lending his support to this rewriting of the rules
of self-defence.
BLAIR (July 02): What has changed in relation to Iraq or
any other part of the world is the clear understanding that if
there is a threat it has to be dealt with and cannot be ignored,
and we shouldn't wait until that threat then materialises.
(Where would you say we are in the implementation. What
stage have we reached towards the implementation of doing
something of the kind you describe.) Well, as I say to
people constantly, no decisions have been taken on this yet.
We know there's a threat. We know we can't ignore it until
we take them.
STOURTON: By the end of last spring many of the
positions we have heard rehearsed with such passion in
the past few days and weeks were already well established.
There have been extraordinary diplomatic twists and
turns in this crisis, but the substance of the argument has
really moved very little since then. France was already
establishing herself as the leader of the European peace
party Hubert Vedrine.
VEDRINE: I see that powerful forces in Washington are
preparing for military action in Iraq, would like it to take place
and there are those who wish to engage in such action because
Iraq represents a threat. There are those who want to do it, to
finish the "job" as they say over there but if the UN inspections
could be undertaken once more without constraints and freely
that would indeed create a new element that the Bush
administration would have to take into consideration.
STOURTON: The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, was
already warning the world about what he saw as the
dangers of American unilateralism when I talked to him
last spring.
ANNAN: I think on Iraq they are hearing from so many
people, from Europe from .. middle East, and I myself have
indicated that I think it would be unwise to bomb Iraq, they
are coming here to see me the end of the month to continue
the discussion on, on the return of the inspectors, and I hope
they will realise that is the only solution and that the only way
they are going to see light at the end of the day as they put it,
and end the suffering of their people, is by complying with

the security council resolutions (But to be absolutely clear on

your position, you don't believe that action against Iraq would
be covered by self defence in the way that action against
Afghanistan was. ) I think that would be a question for the
council to determine, I'm not sure the council would vote for
that, the way they voted for Afghanistan.
STOURTON: The decisive months were last August and
September. It was an ill-tempered diplomatic summer,
and the world grew impatient for a sign from Washington
of what the President planned. The hawks made most of
the public running at the beginning of August I
interviewed the Presidents National Security Adviser,
Condolezza Rice.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE (August 02) : The President hasn't
decided how he wants to do it, or how he intends to make the
case for particular methods. But by all means, we believe the
case for regime change is very powerful. This is a regime,
Saddam Hussein's regime, that we know has twice tried -and come closer than we thought at the time -- to acquire
nuclear weapons. He has developed biological weapons, and
lied to the U.N. repeatedly about the stockpiles and the
numbers and the volume of that. He has used chemical
weapons against his own people and against his neighbours.
He has invaded his neighbours. He has killed thousands of
his own people.
He shoots at our planes in the no-fly zone,
where we're trying to enforce U.N. security resolutions. And
he, despite the fact that he lost this war -- a war, by the way,
which he started -- he negotiates with the United Nations as
if he won the war.
I think it's a very stunning indictment.
And so the moral case -- that this is an evil man who, left to
his own devices, will wreak havoc again, on his own
population, his neighbours, and, if he gets weapons of mass
destruction and the means to deliver them, on all of us -- is a
very powerful moral case for regime change.
STOURTON: There were people right back in the first week
after September the 11th who thought action should be taken
against Iraq then. How urgent do you think it is now, given
what you've just said?
RICE: We certainly do not have the luxury of doing nothing.
History is littered with cases of inaction that led to very grave
consequences for the world.
STOURTON: But it was the consequences of ACTION
that worried many of the envoys from Europe and the
Middle East who beating a path to the White House. I
spoke to King Abdullah of Jordan in those early days of
August as he prepared to plead his case with Condoleeza
Rice and George Bush.
KING ABDULLAH: I think everybody in the world even,
even Americans here are, and I would even say the President
is, is concerned because you know. The President
understands the linkage between Iraq and, and the
Palestinians and he understands that you know, the potential
of, of a destabilised Iraq could have on the region, so I think
there's a, there is a lot of commonsense out (I mean what do
you think that that impact could be, you talked about a
Pandora's box being opened in the middle east, what did you

mean, what might happen.) Well I mean can you imagine a, a

very large country the size of Iraq disintegrating into, into..
chaos as three factions of Iraqi society have a go at each
other.
STOURTON: But even then some eight months ago it
was apparent that the Administration in Washington had
made up its mind about its objectives. The Under
Secretary of State, John Bolton.
BOLTON: There is almost no hesitation politically in the
United States about what to do about Iraq. We may have other
work to do internationally to build support for it but I think
one other thing is true after Saddam Hussein is removed,
you will find almost unanimous support for it. (In you view,
it is after not if? ) that regime has to change for the benefit of
the Iraqi people let alone for peace and stability in the region.
segue
RUMSFELD: The situation with Iraq is that we're at the end
of the string.
STOURTON : Donald Rumsfeld.
RUMSFELD: We've tried diplomacy for 12 years. We've
tried economic sanctions, and they have not worked. The
effort on the part of the international community to prevent
him from having those things that enable him to develop
those capabilities failed. And he was not contained, and he
was not in a box. And even limited military action in the
north and the south has really not done it.
STOURTON: For Washington there was really only one
more argument to have and it had more to do with
tactics than objectives. Should they work through the
United Nations? The hawks in the Bush Administration
were ready to argue that the UN simply couldnt be
trusted to do the job. But there was powerful competition
for the Presidents ear - from his Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, and his closest foreign ally, Tony Blair. They
argued that the UN route would make it possible to
sustain the coalition George Bush had built in the war on
terrorism. And at that stage even the hardest of hardliners
Donald Rumsfelds deputy, Paul Wolfowitz was
talking in emollient terms in the hope that the best of it
could be preserved.
WOLFOWITZ (speaking in September 02) I am not surprise
d when issues are as big as the ones were dealing with that
they are going to be disagreements. However, the fact that we
share very common perspectives about goals and whats
desirable makes me much more optimistic. When the
president talks about building a better world beyond the war
in terrorism, he doesnt have a vision of the world thats
radically different from what our European allies have.
GROUND ZERO: List of those killed on Sept 11th fading
under: Todd Beamer (bell) Ellen Bevin (bell) . . . .
STOURTON: The first anniversary of the attacks on
Washington and New York. Ceremonies at Ground Zero,
and indeed across the country, stir powerful emotions

again.
The next day George Bush stands before the General
Assembly of the United Nations.
BUSH: Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a
decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the
United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security
Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced, or cast
aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the
purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
STOURTON: It was a direct challenge to the United
Nations. But the mere fact that the President had agreed
to use the UN route was or so it seemed at the time a
significant victory for Colin Powell and Tony Blair.
By the time the Prime Minister faced his party conference
in October he was able to say that hed nudged Americas
policy a little the focus now was on a UN resolution and
disarmament not the original American policy of regime
change.
BLAIR (Oct 3) What has happened all the way through here
is that weve had what Ive constantly said to people are
extremely open, absolutely transparent discussions with the
United States administration. Its a partnership that works
extremely well and weve decided to go the United Nations
route. And George Bush did that, he went to the United
Nations and said Look. Ok. People want me to go down the
route of the UN, people want the international community to
be handling this as a whole. Lets do it that way. And that is
where we are now. What weve got to do is get the fresh
resolution through the UN and make sure then that Saddam is
under absolutely no doubt of the consequences if he doesnt
comply with it.
STOURTON: It took almost two full months of
negotiations to produce a new resolution on Iraq the
Resolution 1441 we have heard so much about in recent
weeks. Almost every paragraph was fought over,
sometimes down to single words and phrases. And if
diplomatic skill can be defined as the finessing of
apparently irreconcilable differences, this was a
diplomatic masterpiece. At the last minute even the
Syrians the voice of the Arab world on the Security
Council at that time agreed to support it, and when the
Chinese chairman of the Council announced the
unanimous passage of the resolution everyone had a good
word to say for it.
Nov 8 UN Resolution 1441
MANDARIN: The draft resolution has been adopted
unanimously as resolution 1441 of 2002 (gavel)
[Music starts then dips]
BUSH: The world has now come together to say that the
outlaw regime in Iraq will not be permitted to build . or
possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
LEVITTE: La France considere (France believes that the

resolution that has just been adopted unanimously is a good

resolution) raisons suivantes
GREENSTOCK: With the adoption of this resolution the
security council has clearly stated that the United Nations will
no longer tolerate this defiance.
PUTIN (In Russian): This is the result of a compromise but it
is a compromise which is acceptable to us.
STOURTON: It now seems that everyone thought they
were signing up to something slightly different. 1441
talked of serious consequences for Iraq if Saddam failed
to comply but it didnt use that time honoured
euphemism for military action all necessary means. It
said the Security Council should debate the matter again,
but the American ambassador to the UN, John
Negroponte, insisted it did not tie Americas hands.
NEGROPONTE: If the Security Council fails to act
decisively in the event of further Iraqi violations, this
resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to
defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce
relevant United Nations resolutions and protect world peace
and security.
STOURTON: The weapons inspectors moved in in force
more than two hundred of them from sixty countries.
They carried out more than five hundred inspections,
visited more than three hundred sites. Hans Blix dutifully
reported the results to the Security Council. But somehow
the process seemed almost ritual.
[Music starts then dips]
BLIX: The most important point to make is that access has
been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with
one exception it has been prompt. (27/01/03)
BARADEI: Our work is steadily progressing and should be
allowed to run its natural course. (27/01/03)
NEGROPONTE: They are not co-operating
unconditionally.
BLIX: I must not jump to the conclusion that they exist.
However, that possibility is also not excluded (14/02/03)
GREENSTOCK: Its quite clear now that Iraq is not
responding to the terms of 1441.
BLIX: It will not take years, nor weeks, but months (7/03/03)
STOURTON: As the inspection process ground on,
diplomatic nerves showed signs of wear and tear. In
January a group of European nations led by the British,
Italians and Spanish but including some of the aspiring
new members of the EU from Eastern Europe expressed
support for the American position. It provoked an
extraordinary rebuke from Jacques Chirac.
CHIRAC: Frankly I find that the candidate countries have
behaved rather recklessly if on the first difficult issue they
start giving their point of view without consulting the rest of
the EU they want to join. This is not a very responsible
behaviour. It is certainly not very well behaved. So I think
they missed a good opportunity to shut up. This sort of
behaviour is not only childish. It is also dangerous.

STOURTON: In February Turkey asked Nato for

protection France, Germany and Belgium argued that
was a step on the road to war, and resisted it in what
became one of the most rancorous debates in the
Alliances history. The bitterness within the corridors of
Natos headquarters in Brussels spilled out in public
Americas Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fired off
an early volley prompting a tart response from
Germanys foreign minister Joschka Fischer.
RUMSFELD: Now, you're thinking of Europe as Germany
and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at
the entire NATO-Europe today, the centre of gravity is
shifting to the east.
FISCHER: Nur meine Generation hat dabei gelernt -- you
have to make the case, and to make a case in the democracy
you must convince by yourself. And excuse me, I am not
convinced! This is my problem. And I cannot go to the
public and say, "Oh well, let's go to war because there are
reasons", and so on. And I don't believe in that.
STOURTON: The exchange of transatlantic insults was so
intense that people began to question the very purpose of
the worlds most powerful military alliance.
CONGRESSMAN PETE KING: We have eighteen
countries going one way and three countries going in another,
three of them are, let's face it, somewhat inconsequential. I
mean France is no longer a world power, Belgium never was,
Germany started two wars in the twentieth century.
FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO NATO,BENOIT
d'ABOVILLE: We consider that we should cool down a bit
and not raise the kind of distortion that I just heard.
CONGRESSMAN DOUG BEREUTER, PRESIDENT OF
NATO'S PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY: it does raise
questions about what the alliance is all about -- does it have
any legitimate reason for existing.
STOURTON: The military timetable took over as the
hopes for diplomacy began to die.
The massive build up of troops and equipment went ahead
against a groundswell of anti-war feeling. Over one
weekend millions of people demonstrated against the war
in 60 countries.
DEMO: This is President Bushs war. This is Prime Minister
Blairs war but this is not Australias warWell the march in
Cape Town is now well and truly under way. Thousands of
people all carrying the various banners with the same
message; Stop Bushs war. In times of crisis it is necessary to
bring down a prime minister. Bring Blair down.
STOURTON: The organisers put the number of people
who marched in London at two million - the police
estimate of 750,000, but either way it was the largest
demonstration the capital has ever seen.
Tony Blair was now coming under intense political

pressure at home; more than a hundred and twenty of his

backbenchers staged the biggest parliamentary rebellion
for at least a century, and there was even talk of a plot to
despose him from the leadership of the Labour party. The
Prime Minister put his faith in a second resolution at the
United Nations which would give explicit UN authority for
military action, and quieten the critics in his party.
BLAIR: So now we have reached the point of decision and
we make a final appeal for there to be that strong unified
message on behalf of the international community that lays
down a clear ultimatum to Saddam that authorises force if he
continues to defy the will of the whole international
community set out in 1441.
STOURTON: History said that in the end the opposition
to war from France and Russia the two states that really
mattered with their Security Council vetoes would melt
away at the last that, after all was what happened before
the first Gulf War. But history had led the diplomats up
the garden path this time, and it turned out there had been
a profound miscalculation at the heart of the British and
American strategy all along. On March 10th Jacques
Chirac, the French President, delivered what can only be
described as a pre-emptive veto.
CHIRAC: (10/3/03) My position is that no matter what the
circumstances France will vote No because it considers that
for the time being there is no need for a war to achieve the
ambition that we have set for ourselves - that is the
disarmament of Iraq
STOURTON: That was really the end of the diplomatic
road much of what has happened since has been little
more than an elaborate exercise in recrimination.
American anger turned back on the United Nations which,
in Washingtons eyes, has failed to meet George Bushs
challenge in spectacular fashion. The Presidents
spokesman, Ari Fleischer.
FLEISCHER (10/3): If the United Nations fails to act that
means the United Nations will not be the international body
that disarms Saddam Hussein. Another international body
will disarm Saddam Hussein. So this will remain
international action its just the United Nations will have
chosen to have put itself on the sidelines - that is the United
Nations Security Council will have - so Saddam will be
disarmed by an international group. But from a moral point
of view as the world witnessed in Rwanda and as the world
witnessed in Kosovo the United Nations Security Council will
have failed to act once again.
STOURTON: The French accused Britain and America of
playing outside the UN rules because they didnt like the
way the game was going. The French foreign minister,
Dominique de Villepin.
VILLEPIN : We are not playing into Saddams hands. We
have the rule of the game 1441. We have referee, which is
very important. The referees are the inspectors. They are in

the ground. They said during the last months, they said very
constantly during the last report they made to the Security
Council that there were progress. We have to listen to what
they are saying. There is progress. There is active cooperation. They said it very loudly and very clearly. We
cannot say at the very same time we are looking for cooperation, we are looking for disarmament of Iraq - peaceful
disarmament - and not accept the conclusion of the inspectors.
STOURTON: For Britain the knife that killed diplomacy
was in French hands when the lights went on any
progress towards a common European foreign policy has
been brought to a shuddering standstill by this crisis. The
Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, speaking in the Commons
STRAW IN HOUSE OF COMMONS (17/03/03): President
Chirac's unequivocal announcement of Monday last that
France would veto a second resolution containing this or any
ultimatum, whatever the circumstances, inevitably created a
sense of paralysis in our negotiations(FX: Cheering) and
I deeply regret that France has thereby put a Security Council
consensus beyond reach.
STOURTON: America and Britain are doing the fighting
in Iraq, but the Australians have sent some forces too; the
Spanish are making a couple of bases available. The
White House says their coalition is more than 30 countries
strong - but the truth is it is a pale shadow of the coalition
of support gathered for the war in Afghanistan, in the
aftermath of September 11th.
As the last hours of peace ticked away Kofi Annan, the UN
Secretary General - little more than a bystander now reflected on the damage done to the United Nations and
diplomacy itself.
ANNAN (19/3/03): Whatever our differing views on this
complex issue, we must all feel that this is a sad day for the
United Nations and the international community. I know that
millions of people around the world share this sense of
disappointment, and are deeply alarmed by the prospect of
imminent war.
STOURTON: The UN route George Bush took last
autumn looks like little more than a detour now. Perhaps
nothing could have stopped the journey that took America
from the Presidents address to the nation on the night of
September 11th 2001, to his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein
this week. All that talk of weapons inspectors had given
way to the simple objective which he always said he
wanted; regime change in Baghdad.
BUSH: The United Nations Security Council has not lived up
to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours. . . Now that
conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to
apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a
campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome
but victory.