:01:18. > :01:23.Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Zeenat the dull week. My guest today was
:01:24. > :01:27.one of the most senior diplomats involved in the decision-making
:01:28. > :01:31.process leading up to the Iraq war -- Zeenat Badawi. He was British
:01:32. > :01:36.ambassador to the United Nations and then served as the UK's permanent
:01:37. > :01:39.representative in Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion. He gave
:01:40. > :01:44.evidence to the Chilcott enquiry which looked at the invasion and its
:01:45. > :01:45.consequences. With the benefit of hindsight, would he have done
:01:46. > :02:18.anything differently? Sir Jeremy Greenstock, welcome to
:02:19. > :02:22.HARDtalk. Thank you. After publication of the Chilcott Inquiry,
:02:23. > :02:27.were you worried how public opinion might view your involvement in the
:02:28. > :02:30.run-up to the Iraq war and after? Well, I was worried before the
:02:31. > :02:36.publication of Chilcott and we all have to think we're in the realm of
:02:37. > :02:42.quite serious criticism here because things went wrong. After the report
:02:43. > :02:45.I think I was satisfied that the Foreign Office seems to have come
:02:46. > :02:52.out of the report reasonably intact and our judgements at the time are
:02:53. > :02:55.told in narrative but not particularly criticised. And you
:02:56. > :03:00.were happy with all the references made about you? I am, yes. You were
:03:01. > :03:05.at the centre of discussions in the run-up to the war. Ten years ago you
:03:06. > :03:09.wrote a book about the costs of the Iraq war. The British authorities
:03:10. > :03:14.asked you to remove some of the passages, some parts of it, and it's
:03:15. > :03:18.gone into the freezer, have you any plans to publish it? They didn't
:03:19. > :03:28.asked me to cut any particular pieces. In fact the Cabinet office
:03:29. > :03:31.at Number ten I understood didn't mind it at all. Jack Straw... He was
:03:32. > :03:34.the British Foreign Secretary at the time? As Foreign Secretary at the
:03:35. > :03:36.time he was clear he didn't want an official writing so soon after the
:03:37. > :03:42.event when ministers involved were still in office, he asked me to wait
:03:43. > :03:48.until they all left office. Then Chilcott appeared, I thought it
:03:49. > :03:51.would take two or three years, it took seven, it wouldn't be politic
:03:52. > :03:56.to publish the book before Chilcott reported so now I have a freer
:03:57. > :04:00.decision. One aspect of the Iraqi war which Sir John Chilcot in his
:04:01. > :04:03.enquiry said was this question of the legality of the war.
:04:04. > :04:05.For many people, that was the elephant in the room.
:04:06. > :04:08.Should he have really pronounced on whether the Iraq
:04:09. > :04:13.I know, but do you think he should have been?
:04:14. > :04:16.I was expecting a comment and in fact, there was quite a crisp
:04:17. > :04:18.comment that they didn't think that the arrangements around
:04:19. > :04:25.the decisions on legality were satisfactory.
:04:26. > :04:27.He said they were far from satisfactory, the circumstances
:04:28. > :04:29.in which they were decided there was a legal basis
:04:30. > :04:33.He's not set up, the committee wasn't set up to give
:04:34. > :04:42.But was he right that the legal basis for UK military action
:04:43. > :04:44.was far from satisfactory, do you agree with him?
:04:45. > :04:46.I don't fully agree with it, in fact.
:04:47. > :04:49.I think that the legitimacy of the decisions made at the time
:04:50. > :04:52.and I make a distinction, we can go into, between legality
:04:53. > :04:54.and legitimacy, but I think we looked very carefully
:04:55. > :04:58.at the legal basis for going to war without an up to date,
:04:59. > :04:59.a second decision by the Security Council
:05:00. > :05:01.and the Attorney-General at the time, Peter Goldsmith,
:05:02. > :05:04.decided that the original resolution still stood and I'm content
:05:05. > :05:15.with that decision of the Attorney-General.
:05:16. > :05:18.So really you disagree with Sir John Chilcot in that
:05:19. > :05:21.conclusion, you are saying, he was wrong?
:05:22. > :05:26.You've got to read very carefully what he's saying.
:05:27. > :05:28.He said it was far from satisfactory.
:05:29. > :05:30.I asked you if that was right or not.
:05:31. > :05:32.No, he said the reaching of the decision was far
:05:33. > :05:35.But the Prime Minister took an almost arbitrary decision
:05:36. > :05:38.that the breaching of the earlier resolutions by Saddam Hussein
:05:39. > :05:48.He didn't ask anybody about whether or not
:05:49. > :05:54.At the time, the UN secretary-general was Kofi Annan.
:05:55. > :06:00.In September 2004, he gave a very key interview to the BBC.
:06:01. > :06:03.When he was asked if the Iraq war was illegal, he said,
:06:04. > :06:06."I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter
:06:07. > :06:10.From the charter point of view it was illegal."
:06:11. > :06:12.You say you disagree with Kofi Annan?
:06:13. > :06:20.There was nothing in the charter that affected it.
:06:21. > :06:25.What he's missing and he was pressed to give a view.
:06:26. > :06:31.No, but he gave that statement and he stands by it.
:06:32. > :06:35.He said yes to the answer: "Do you think it was illegal?"
:06:36. > :06:38.And he's actually trying to uphold the authority
:06:39. > :06:42.of the Security Council in making an up to date decision on any use
:06:43. > :06:44.We had that legal basis from the 1990/91 resolutions,
:06:45. > :06:57.Pertaining to the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein
:06:58. > :07:05.OK, I don't want to make it too, too complex.
:07:06. > :07:08.You said at the time you would resign if there was not
:07:09. > :07:11.a resolution, a new resolution, which you felt would allow military
:07:12. > :07:17.action, if it came to that, resolution 1441, which was passed.
:07:18. > :07:19.I didn't say publicly that I would resign.
:07:20. > :07:24.I let the Foreign Office know in October 2002 that if there was no
:07:25. > :07:29.resolution updating the 1990 resolutions, in 2002/03,
:07:30. > :07:35.I might not be able to hold my position in New York.
:07:36. > :07:37.We got a resolution, 1441, which updated the effect
:07:38. > :07:40.and the import of the 1990 resolutions on the 8th
:07:41. > :07:52.That was enough for you, but it wasn't enough
:07:53. > :07:54.for other people, was it, because they said that resolution
:07:55. > :07:57.did not explicitly endorse the invasion of Iraq.
:07:58. > :07:59.The French, for instance, at the time, were saying, look,
:08:00. > :08:03.we're not saying we would never go to war, but we want more time.
:08:04. > :08:05.We want diplomacy to be given a chance.
:08:06. > :08:07.We want Hans Blix, the inspector to go into Iraq.
:08:08. > :08:15.But you decided that resolution 1441 was sufficient.
:08:16. > :08:19.1441, whatever the French say, and what they then went on to say
:08:20. > :08:22.as you summarised was different from the question of legality,
:08:23. > :08:24.what 1441 said was that Saddam was not implementing
:08:25. > :08:37.With that statement in 1441, Saddam was in breach.
:08:38. > :08:41.But your opinion was really a very big contributory factor helping
:08:42. > :08:50.the UK decide whether it would back the United States to invade Iraq.
:08:51. > :08:52.The Attorney-General, Peter Goldsmith, says his
:08:53. > :08:58.conversation with you in January - on January 23 was one of the key
:08:59. > :09:00.factors that helped him decide that actually,
:09:01. > :09:07.Before that, he thought, oh, you might need another resolution
:09:08. > :09:17.What I went through with the Attorney-General on the 23
:09:18. > :09:20.of January was the negotiating history of 1441 and what other
:09:21. > :09:22.nations on the Security Council understood
:09:23. > :09:29.at the time of the passing of 1441 was its import.
:09:30. > :09:31.He then, after that, let me know, through his assistant
:09:32. > :09:33.in the Attorney-General's office, that he was still inclined
:09:34. > :09:35.to think that another resolution was necessary.
:09:36. > :09:38.He then, a few weeks later, went to Washington and talked
:09:39. > :09:41.to the Americans and to the American lawyers, and it was after that
:09:42. > :09:47.conversation that he wrote his final judgment.
:09:48. > :09:50.He cites that visit to the United States and the opinion
:09:51. > :09:53.of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and also
:09:54. > :09:56.the conversation he had with you, he says, "Sir Jeremy had made some
:09:57. > :09:58.good points and he had made some headway with me.
:09:59. > :10:01.Frankly, there was still work for me to do.
:10:02. > :10:03.He hadn't got me there, if you like."
:10:04. > :10:06.I didn't say you were the sole reason, but you were contributory
:10:07. > :10:11.Yes, because I was pointing out the facts, not that
:10:12. > :10:20.But your conversation with him was cited as one of the reasons why
:10:21. > :10:23.he decided that one resolution was enough and so the point is,
:10:24. > :10:25.you were a contributory factor in that decision for
:10:26. > :10:32.Yes, that's what civil servants are for to explain precisely what's
:10:33. > :10:36.happened and what the interpretation of those events should be.
:10:37. > :10:38.Does that decision weigh, in any way, heavily with you?
:10:39. > :10:43.I still think that the British Government made a mistake in not
:10:44. > :10:47.collecting more political support for what they were doing,
:10:48. > :10:50.which is how I describe international legitimacy.
:10:51. > :10:53.There's no court in the world that says that something
:10:54. > :10:58.We have to go by political opinion across the various
:10:59. > :11:01.We never gathered enough political support to make it seem that
:11:02. > :11:12.what we were doing in invading Iraq was a legitimate policy act.
:11:13. > :11:15.The Chilcot report also says of you that, "Sir Jeremy told
:11:16. > :11:22.the inquiry he was not aware of the divergence of view
:11:23. > :11:28.about whether the draft resolution 1441 would authorise the use
:11:29. > :11:32.of force without a further resolution."
:11:33. > :11:33.Because that sounds quite incredible.
:11:34. > :11:38.I was aware of all sorts of things that were going on.
:11:39. > :11:41.But what I had to follow in New York were the instructions
:11:42. > :11:50.I didn't have to be part of the legal to-ing and fro-ing
:11:51. > :11:53.within London because I was doing a different job in New York.
:11:54. > :11:56.What I needed was a final set of instructions
:11:57. > :11:58.from the Foreign Secretary and I needed to know
:11:59. > :12:00.that the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom had declared
:12:01. > :12:03.that what we were about to do was consistent with international law.
:12:04. > :12:11.But you weren't aware of the debate going on, because for example,
:12:12. > :12:17.Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal advisor at
:12:18. > :12:19.the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, resigned a day before
:12:20. > :12:22.the invasion in March 2003, because she said, "I had no doubt
:12:23. > :12:26.The UN Security Council resolution the Government relied on did not
:12:27. > :12:28.legitimise the use of force against another country."
:12:29. > :12:31.I'm not asking you to comment on what she said.
:12:32. > :12:34.But the fact is that kind of opinion didn't come out of the blue.
:12:35. > :12:37.Surely you must have been aware of the kind of debate
:12:38. > :12:42.Elizabeth resigning was one thing and it disturbed me.
:12:43. > :12:44.Her boss, Michael Wood didn't resign.
:12:45. > :12:45.Her ultimate boss, the Foreign Secretary,
:12:46. > :12:50.did not - Michael Wood was the legal counsel.
:12:51. > :12:52.He was the legal advisor to the Foreign Secretary,
:12:53. > :12:56.He did not take Elizabeth's position.
:12:57. > :13:03.I don't watch the tennis ball going back-and-forth across the net.
:13:04. > :13:06.I wait for the result of the game, which is the Foreign
:13:07. > :13:15.Given that France wanted more time for diplomacy and inspections,
:13:16. > :13:18.as a career diplomat, do you now wish that more time had
:13:19. > :13:23.It's quite clear from Chilcot that I was one of those saying this
:13:24. > :13:26.is not the right time to go, we need more time for inspections.
:13:27. > :13:29.It's much safer to wait until September or the Autumn to go
:13:30. > :13:37.I cannot convince everybody on the Security Council
:13:38. > :13:48.I was part of those advocating more time in the early months of 2003.
:13:49. > :13:51.With the benefit of hindsight, would you have done anything
:13:52. > :13:52.differently, perhaps tried to say what you've just
:13:53. > :13:59.You say these things clearly in confidence shall telegrams
:14:00. > :14:03.It was not for me to say anything publicly.
:14:04. > :14:05.I could have resigned, like Elizabeth.
:14:06. > :14:08.But I decided that I was not being asked to do anything illegal
:14:09. > :14:11.or immoral and it was my job to support the choices
:14:12. > :14:24.I'm perfectly satisfied, in hindsight, with that position.
:14:25. > :14:32.The planning and preparation for Iraq after Saddam Hussein
:14:33. > :14:34.was removed was something that you were, that you witnessed first
:14:35. > :14:41.hand because you were the UK's special representative in Iraq.
:14:42. > :14:45.Of course, there was the Coalition Provisional Authority,
:14:46. > :14:47.which was led by Paul Bremer, the American.
:14:48. > :14:51.You've made it quite clear that you weren't there as his deputy,
:14:52. > :14:55.It was fascinating and very difficult.
:14:56. > :14:57.Remember, I only joined the Coalition Provisional Authority
:14:58. > :15:12.My predecessor there was Ambassador John Sawers,
:15:13. > :15:15.who came from Cairo at the request of Tony Blair to take
:15:16. > :15:18.on the job with Bremer, for the first few weeks.
:15:19. > :15:25.The main decisions on the disbanding of the Army
:15:26. > :15:27.and the de-Ba'athification exercise had all been taken before
:15:28. > :15:30.But it was clear to me, from the beginning,
:15:31. > :15:33.that we were in very difficult territory and that the American
:15:34. > :15:35.decisions on how to play the coalition period
:15:36. > :15:44.So, I think perhaps it's fair to say, my most difficult task
:15:45. > :15:47.was to reason with the Americans about what should be done in Iraq.
:15:48. > :15:50.Surviving in Iraq and existing with bodyguards round you the whole
:15:51. > :15:55.time and making sure you weren't exposed to bombs and other things,
:15:56. > :16:08.You'd been in Saudi Arabia, amongst other places and so on.
:16:09. > :16:12.Did the Americans listen to the kind of things you had to say?
:16:13. > :16:14.What worried you, very briefly, essentially, you said
:16:15. > :16:16.the de-Ba'athification and so on had already happened,
:16:17. > :16:18.but what worried you and did you feel sidelined?
:16:19. > :16:20.I didn't feel sidelined, but let's be absolutely clear
:16:21. > :16:28.You are a junior cousin to the Americans.
:16:29. > :16:33.They provide 95% of the money and the people on the ground.
:16:34. > :16:36.You are 2% or 3% of the real resources of the operation,
:16:37. > :16:41.yet within the Security Council's legal framework under resolution
:16:42. > :16:48.1483 of May 2003, for the occupation, we had 50%
:16:49. > :16:56.Ministers found it very difficult to understand that we couldn't have
:16:57. > :17:00.50% of the influence on decisions with 3% of the resources.
:17:01. > :17:09.I think I said to Prime Minister Blair at one stage,
:17:10. > :17:12."Prime Minister, you must realise that I am not your agent in Iraq.
:17:13. > :17:15.Ambassador Paul Bremer is your agent in Iraq.
:17:16. > :17:17.He represents the joint US-UK effort.
:17:18. > :17:20.He is the person who is in the best position to implement
:17:21. > :17:24.what you want to get out of Iraq in this period."
:17:25. > :17:27.It is believed that in your book, that hasn't been published,
:17:28. > :17:31.that you're a bit critical of Paul Bremer and indeed the US
:17:32. > :17:33.Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, at the time,
:17:34. > :17:36.Not particularly, wait for my book to come out.
:17:37. > :17:39.When a book is not published, because the Government doesn't want
:17:40. > :17:41.you to publish it, everybody imagines that the book
:17:42. > :17:46.You said the Government didn't mind, it was just Jack Straw at the time.
:17:47. > :17:50.I was much more supportive of the Government than people
:17:51. > :17:53.who would want something different will be sad to see.
:17:54. > :18:06.Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary,
:18:07. > :18:09.Iraq was seen very as a project of the neo-conservatives
:18:10. > :18:14.I'm quite critical, both in my book text and in real life of the role,
:18:15. > :18:18.particularly which Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played in this.
:18:19. > :18:20.I think he badly underestimated the number of troops that
:18:21. > :18:26.The thing that went most badly wrong, after the 10th
:18:27. > :18:30.of April, was the handling of the security situation.
:18:31. > :18:35.Losing that, you can't do anything else.
:18:36. > :18:38.Once it was lost, in a country where we and the Americans didn't
:18:39. > :18:40.have the instruments to govern the whole country,
:18:41. > :18:50.Documents released by the Chilcot Inquiry showed
:18:51. > :18:54.that the UK was concerned that the US was pledging contracts
:18:55. > :19:00.to Russian oil companies in an effort to overcome Russian
:19:01. > :19:04.opposition to the invasion and so on.
:19:05. > :19:06.You told the inquiry no non-Americans were allowed to help
:19:07. > :19:08.run the oil sector in Iraq, post invasion.
:19:09. > :19:11.Was it all about oil, as many people in the Muslim world
:19:12. > :19:17.What I say may not be more than a drop in the ocean,
:19:18. > :19:20.but I want to say very categorically, I never saw any
:19:21. > :19:25.evidence or any indirect indication that this was anything about oil.
:19:26. > :19:31.People have got to remember that oil, from whatever source,
:19:32. > :19:35.always reaches the market and goes across the world in
:19:36. > :19:43.This was not about oil and should never have been about oil.
:19:44. > :19:45.We know that major British oil companies had conversations
:19:46. > :19:49.with the then Trade Minister, Baroness Liz Symons,
:19:50. > :19:51.five months before the invasion to position themselves.
:19:52. > :19:55.We know that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary,
:19:56. > :19:59.sent a now declassified letter to Tony Blair in which he said,
:20:00. > :20:02."A key objectist of the UK Government was to increase
:20:03. > :20:05.the involvement of the private sector leading to sustained
:20:06. > :20:08.investment over the next five to ten years in the Iraqi energy sector."
:20:09. > :20:16.Before and after the invasion, I'm saying?
:20:17. > :20:18.Of course. It was a factor?
:20:19. > :20:21.No, it wasn't a factor in the decision-making to go to war.
:20:22. > :20:24.It was the factor in the placing of our commercial interests,
:20:25. > :20:26.if Saddam was to be exited from Iraq.
:20:27. > :20:29.You can see how that might play, the perception, do you accept that?
:20:30. > :20:31.I can see how people make the confusion.
:20:32. > :20:35.What I'm trying to say to you, very clearly, is that oil was not
:20:36. > :20:43.a reason for going to war, never was, and never
:20:44. > :20:45.The fact that contracts were an interesting part
:20:46. > :20:48.of the new Iraq was something to compete with the Americans for.
:20:49. > :20:51.Actually, let me just give you the statistic.
:20:52. > :20:54.In the first year of the coalition period, we with 3% of the resources
:20:55. > :20:57.offered on the ground got 12% of the contracts, the UK.
:20:58. > :21:05.You said on BBC Radio immediately after the Chilcot Inquiry was made
:21:06. > :21:08.public, "I was serving a Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
:21:09. > :21:11.who was absolutely determined to stick with the Americans once
:21:12. > :21:17.That has been a criticism, public opinion, the press and so on,
:21:18. > :21:21.that Tony Blair should not have said, "I'm with you, whatever."
:21:22. > :21:24.I know he said other things, but that is the thing that
:21:25. > :21:32.I'm not going to comment on Tony Blair Tony Blair's got
:21:33. > :21:42.When I re-read that in Chilcot, I thought it's an entirely natural
:21:43. > :21:45.thing for a Prime Minister to say to a president, when he's
:21:46. > :21:49.introducing some conditions that he wants to make,
:21:50. > :21:51.you have to read it, with the "but" sentence
:21:52. > :21:57.Because it's just the natural intercourse between a Prime Minister
:21:58. > :22:01.and a president that you say, "I'm with you."
:22:02. > :22:04.What he was not saying was that "I'm with you in starting a war."
:22:05. > :22:09.But that's what happened in the end, isn't it?
:22:10. > :22:13.That's where hindsight changes the character of what he says.
:22:14. > :22:16.Of course, David Manning and others, his foreign policy advisor
:22:17. > :22:21.in Number Ten, warned him it would be taken that way
:22:22. > :22:27.the tone with his friend, George.
:22:28. > :22:30.The impact of that, as the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select
:22:31. > :22:33.Committee report says in 2010, was the perception
:22:34. > :22:36.that the British Government was a subservient poodle
:22:37. > :22:39.to the United States administration leading up to the invasion of Iraq,
:22:40. > :22:41.and its aftermath is widespread both among the British
:22:42. > :22:46.This perception, whatever its relation to reality,
:22:47. > :22:49.is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the UK.
:22:50. > :22:55.Correct, yes? No, it's not correct.
:22:56. > :22:57.Let me just take you through the skeleton...
:22:58. > :23:03.I've got less than 2.6 million words.
:23:04. > :23:07.Without us, the Americans wouldn't have gone to the UN.
:23:08. > :23:09.Without the UN being involved, we wouldn't have had hay chance
:23:10. > :23:13.to try and remove Saddam without the use of military force.
:23:14. > :23:17.The whole point about the second resolution was to try and put
:23:18. > :23:21.pressure on Saddam that he gave up, either his weapons or his job,
:23:22. > :23:25.That has been underplayed, both in the accounts previously
:23:26. > :23:31.The effect on Britain's standing, the perception, whether it's
:23:32. > :23:34.detached from reality or not, do you accept the perception
:23:35. > :23:42.Because we changed more things in the American approach
:23:43. > :23:45.Britain's standing now post Brexit - damaged?
:23:46. > :23:47.Yes, damaged. Why?
:23:48. > :23:52.Post Brexit and post Iraq, because we were eventually
:23:53. > :23:56.wrong in Iraq and didn't achieve our objectives in Iraq.
:23:57. > :24:02.Wrong because we didn't control the security and produce a more
:24:03. > :24:07.settled country with control of security, with our help,
:24:08. > :24:11.So Iraq is in a worse state because of the decisions
:24:12. > :24:13.about the peace and not about the war.
:24:14. > :24:17.Tony Blair, when asked said, if he had to do it, he would do it
:24:18. > :24:19.all again, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was correct,
:24:20. > :24:26.I think the decision was wrong on the timing.
:24:27. > :24:31.I think there were good reasons to get rid of a challenge
:24:32. > :24:35.Saddam Hussein was undermining the authority of the Security
:24:36. > :24:38.Council, but the timing was wrong and the lack of political support
:24:39. > :24:50.Is the world a safer place post-Iraq War,
:24:51. > :24:56.The jury is still out, undoubtably it made Iraq
:24:57. > :24:58.an ungoverned space where terrorists have moved in, our interests
:24:59. > :25:02.are affected, we are still involved with our military to some extent
:25:03. > :25:07.It has not made the world a safer place, but the hypothesis
:25:08. > :25:48.of Saddam Hussein still being there, would the world be
:25:49. > :25:52.I think you could be forgiven for wanting a little bit more