13/07/2016 HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Zeenat the dull week. My guest today was

one of the most senior diplomats involved in the decision-making

process leading up to the Iraq war -- Zeenat Badawi. He was British

ambassador to the United Nations and then served as the UK's permanent

representative in Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion. He gave

evidence to the Chilcott enquiry which looked at the invasion and its

consequences. With the benefit of hindsight, would he have done

anything differently? Sir Jeremy Greenstock, welcome to

HARDtalk. Thank you. After publication of the Chilcott Inquiry,

were you worried how public opinion might view your involvement in the

run-up to the Iraq war and after? Well, I was worried before the

publication of Chilcott and we all have to think we're in the realm of

quite serious criticism here because things went wrong. After the report

I think I was satisfied that the Foreign Office seems to have come

out of the report reasonably intact and our judgements at the time are

told in narrative but not particularly criticised. And you

were happy with all the references made about you? I am, yes. You were

at the centre of discussions in the run-up to the war. Ten years ago you

wrote a book about the costs of the Iraq war. The British authorities

asked you to remove some of the passages, some parts of it, and it's

gone into the freezer, have you any plans to publish it? They didn't

asked me to cut any particular pieces. In fact the Cabinet office

at Number ten I understood didn't mind it at all. Jack Straw... He was

the British Foreign Secretary at the time? As Foreign Secretary at the

time he was clear he didn't want an official writing so soon after the

event when ministers involved were still in office, he asked me to wait

until they all left office. Then Chilcott appeared, I thought it

would take two or three years, it took seven, it wouldn't be politic

to publish the book before Chilcott reported so now I have a freer

decision. One aspect of the Iraqi war which Sir John Chilcot in his

enquiry said was this question of the legality of the war.

For many people, that was the elephant in the room.

Should he have really pronounced on whether the Iraq

I know, but do you think he should have been?

I was expecting a comment and in fact, there was quite a crisp

comment that they didn't think that the arrangements around

the decisions on legality were satisfactory.

He said they were far from satisfactory, the circumstances

in which they were decided there was a legal basis

He's not set up, the committee wasn't set up to give

But was he right that the legal basis for UK military action

was far from satisfactory, do you agree with him?

I don't fully agree with it, in fact.

I think that the legitimacy of the decisions made at the time

and I make a distinction, we can go into, between legality

and legitimacy, but I think we looked very carefully

at the legal basis for going to war without an up to date,

a second decision by the Security Council

and the Attorney-General at the time, Peter Goldsmith,

decided that the original resolution still stood and I'm content

with that decision of the Attorney-General.

So really you disagree with Sir John Chilcot in that

conclusion, you are saying, he was wrong?

You've got to read very carefully what he's saying.

He said it was far from satisfactory.

I asked you if that was right or not.

No, he said the reaching of the decision was far

But the Prime Minister took an almost arbitrary decision

that the breaching of the earlier resolutions by Saddam Hussein

He didn't ask anybody about whether or not

At the time, the UN secretary-general was Kofi Annan.

In September 2004, he gave a very key interview to the BBC.

When he was asked if the Iraq war was illegal, he said,

"I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter

From the charter point of view it was illegal."

You say you disagree with Kofi Annan?

There was nothing in the charter that affected it.

What he's missing and he was pressed to give a view.

No, but he gave that statement and he stands by it.

He said yes to the answer: "Do you think it was illegal?"

And he's actually trying to uphold the authority

of the Security Council in making an up to date decision on any use

We had that legal basis from the 1990/91 resolutions,

Pertaining to the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein

OK, I don't want to make it too, too complex.

You said at the time you would resign if there was not

a resolution, a new resolution, which you felt would allow military

action, if it came to that, resolution 1441, which was passed.

I didn't say publicly that I would resign.

I let the Foreign Office know in October 2002 that if there was no

resolution updating the 1990 resolutions, in 2002/03,

I might not be able to hold my position in New York.

We got a resolution, 1441, which updated the effect

and the import of the 1990 resolutions on the 8th

That was enough for you, but it wasn't enough

for other people, was it, because they said that resolution

did not explicitly endorse the invasion of Iraq.

The French, for instance, at the time, were saying, look,

we're not saying we would never go to war, but we want more time.

We want diplomacy to be given a chance.

We want Hans Blix, the inspector to go into Iraq.

But you decided that resolution 1441 was sufficient.

1441, whatever the French say, and what they then went on to say

as you summarised was different from the question of legality,

what 1441 said was that Saddam was not implementing

With that statement in 1441, Saddam was in breach.

But your opinion was really a very big contributory factor helping

the UK decide whether it would back the United States to invade Iraq.

The Attorney-General, Peter Goldsmith, says his

conversation with you in January - on January 23 was one of the key

factors that helped him decide that actually,

Before that, he thought, oh, you might need another resolution

What I went through with the Attorney-General on the 23

of January was the negotiating history of 1441 and what other

nations on the Security Council understood

at the time of the passing of 1441 was its import.

He then, after that, let me know, through his assistant

in the Attorney-General's office, that he was still inclined

to think that another resolution was necessary.

He then, a few weeks later, went to Washington and talked

to the Americans and to the American lawyers, and it was after that

conversation that he wrote his final judgment.

He cites that visit to the United States and the opinion

of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and also

the conversation he had with you, he says, "Sir Jeremy had made some

good points and he had made some headway with me.

Frankly, there was still work for me to do.

He hadn't got me there, if you like."

I didn't say you were the sole reason, but you were contributory

Yes, because I was pointing out the facts, not that

But your conversation with him was cited as one of the reasons why

he decided that one resolution was enough and so the point is,

you were a contributory factor in that decision for

Yes, that's what civil servants are for to explain precisely what's

happened and what the interpretation of those events should be.

Does that decision weigh, in any way, heavily with you?

I still think that the British Government made a mistake in not

collecting more political support for what they were doing,

which is how I describe international legitimacy.

There's no court in the world that says that something

We have to go by political opinion across the various

We never gathered enough political support to make it seem that

what we were doing in invading Iraq was a legitimate policy act.

The Chilcot report also says of you that, "Sir Jeremy told

the inquiry he was not aware of the divergence of view

about whether the draft resolution 1441 would authorise the use

of force without a further resolution."

Because that sounds quite incredible.

I was aware of all sorts of things that were going on.

But what I had to follow in New York were the instructions

I didn't have to be part of the legal to-ing and fro-ing

within London because I was doing a different job in New York.

What I needed was a final set of instructions

from the Foreign Secretary and I needed to know

that the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom had declared

that what we were about to do was consistent with international law.

But you weren't aware of the debate going on, because for example,

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal advisor at

the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, resigned a day before

the invasion in March 2003, because she said, "I had no doubt

The UN Security Council resolution the Government relied on did not

legitimise the use of force against another country."

I'm not asking you to comment on what she said.

But the fact is that kind of opinion didn't come out of the blue.

Surely you must have been aware of the kind of debate

Elizabeth resigning was one thing and it disturbed me.

Her boss, Michael Wood didn't resign.

Her ultimate boss, the Foreign Secretary,

did not - Michael Wood was the legal counsel.

He was the legal advisor to the Foreign Secretary,

He did not take Elizabeth's position.

I don't watch the tennis ball going back-and-forth across the net.

I wait for the result of the game, which is the Foreign

Given that France wanted more time for diplomacy and inspections,

as a career diplomat, do you now wish that more time had

It's quite clear from Chilcot that I was one of those saying this

is not the right time to go, we need more time for inspections.

It's much safer to wait until September or the Autumn to go

I cannot convince everybody on the Security Council

I was part of those advocating more time in the early months of 2003.

With the benefit of hindsight, would you have done anything

differently, perhaps tried to say what you've just

You say these things clearly in confidence shall telegrams

It was not for me to say anything publicly.

I could have resigned, like Elizabeth.

But I decided that I was not being asked to do anything illegal

or immoral and it was my job to support the choices

I'm perfectly satisfied, in hindsight, with that position.

The planning and preparation for Iraq after Saddam Hussein

was removed was something that you were, that you witnessed first

hand because you were the UK's special representative in Iraq.

Of course, there was the Coalition Provisional Authority,

which was led by Paul Bremer, the American.

You've made it quite clear that you weren't there as his deputy,

It was fascinating and very difficult.

Remember, I only joined the Coalition Provisional Authority

My predecessor there was Ambassador John Sawers,

who came from Cairo at the request of Tony Blair to take

on the job with Bremer, for the first few weeks.

The main decisions on the disbanding of the Army

and the de-Ba'athification exercise had all been taken before

But it was clear to me, from the beginning,

that we were in very difficult territory and that the American

decisions on how to play the coalition period

So, I think perhaps it's fair to say, my most difficult task

was to reason with the Americans about what should be done in Iraq.

Surviving in Iraq and existing with bodyguards round you the whole

time and making sure you weren't exposed to bombs and other things,

You'd been in Saudi Arabia, amongst other places and so on.

Did the Americans listen to the kind of things you had to say?

What worried you, very briefly, essentially, you said

the de-Ba'athification and so on had already happened,

but what worried you and did you feel sidelined?

I didn't feel sidelined, but let's be absolutely clear

You are a junior cousin to the Americans.

They provide 95% of the money and the people on the ground.

You are 2% or 3% of the real resources of the operation,

yet within the Security Council's legal framework under resolution

1483 of May 2003, for the occupation, we had 50%

Ministers found it very difficult to understand that we couldn't have

50% of the influence on decisions with 3% of the resources.

I think I said to Prime Minister Blair at one stage,

"Prime Minister, you must realise that I am not your agent in Iraq.

Ambassador Paul Bremer is your agent in Iraq.

He represents the joint US-UK effort.

He is the person who is in the best position to implement

what you want to get out of Iraq in this period."

It is believed that in your book, that hasn't been published,

that you're a bit critical of Paul Bremer and indeed the US

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, at the time,

Not particularly, wait for my book to come out.

When a book is not published, because the Government doesn't want

you to publish it, everybody imagines that the book

You said the Government didn't mind, it was just Jack Straw at the time.

I was much more supportive of the Government than people

who would want something different will be sad to see.

Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary,

Iraq was seen very as a project of the neo-conservatives

I'm quite critical, both in my book text and in real life of the role,

particularly which Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played in this.

I think he badly underestimated the number of troops that

The thing that went most badly wrong, after the 10th

of April, was the handling of the security situation.

Losing that, you can't do anything else.

Once it was lost, in a country where we and the Americans didn't

have the instruments to govern the whole country,

Documents released by the Chilcot Inquiry showed

that the UK was concerned that the US was pledging contracts

to Russian oil companies in an effort to overcome Russian

opposition to the invasion and so on.

You told the inquiry no non-Americans were allowed to help

run the oil sector in Iraq, post invasion.

Was it all about oil, as many people in the Muslim world

What I say may not be more than a drop in the ocean,

but I want to say very categorically, I never saw any

evidence or any indirect indication that this was anything about oil.

People have got to remember that oil, from whatever source,

always reaches the market and goes across the world in

This was not about oil and should never have been about oil.

We know that major British oil companies had conversations

with the then Trade Minister, Baroness Liz Symons,

five months before the invasion to position themselves.

We know that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary,

sent a now declassified letter to Tony Blair in which he said,

"A key objectist of the UK Government was to increase

the involvement of the private sector leading to sustained

investment over the next five to ten years in the Iraqi energy sector."

Before and after the invasion, I'm saying?

Of course. It was a factor?

No, it wasn't a factor in the decision-making to go to war.

It was the factor in the placing of our commercial interests,

if Saddam was to be exited from Iraq.

You can see how that might play, the perception, do you accept that?

I can see how people make the confusion.

What I'm trying to say to you, very clearly, is that oil was not

a reason for going to war, never was, and never

The fact that contracts were an interesting part

of the new Iraq was something to compete with the Americans for.

Actually, let me just give you the statistic.

In the first year of the coalition period, we with 3% of the resources

offered on the ground got 12% of the contracts, the UK.

You said on BBC Radio immediately after the Chilcot Inquiry was made

public, "I was serving a Prime Minister, Tony Blair,

who was absolutely determined to stick with the Americans once

That has been a criticism, public opinion, the press and so on,

that Tony Blair should not have said, "I'm with you, whatever."

I know he said other things, but that is the thing that

I'm not going to comment on Tony Blair Tony Blair's got

When I re-read that in Chilcot, I thought it's an entirely natural

thing for a Prime Minister to say to a president, when he's

introducing some conditions that he wants to make,

you have to read it, with the "but" sentence

Because it's just the natural intercourse between a Prime Minister

and a president that you say, "I'm with you."

What he was not saying was that "I'm with you in starting a war."

But that's what happened in the end, isn't it?

That's where hindsight changes the character of what he says.

Of course, David Manning and others, his foreign policy advisor

in Number Ten, warned him it would be taken that way

the tone with his friend, George.

The impact of that, as the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select

Committee report says in 2010, was the perception

that the British Government was a subservient poodle

to the United States administration leading up to the invasion of Iraq,

and its aftermath is widespread both among the British

This perception, whatever its relation to reality,

is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the UK.

Correct, yes? No, it's not correct.

Let me just take you through the skeleton...

I've got less than 2.6 million words.

Without us, the Americans wouldn't have gone to the UN.

Without the UN being involved, we wouldn't have had hay chance

to try and remove Saddam without the use of military force.

The whole point about the second resolution was to try and put

pressure on Saddam that he gave up, either his weapons or his job,

That has been underplayed, both in the accounts previously

The effect on Britain's standing, the perception, whether it's

detached from reality or not, do you accept the perception

Because we changed more things in the American approach

Britain's standing now post Brexit - damaged?

Yes, damaged. Why?

Post Brexit and post Iraq, because we were eventually

wrong in Iraq and didn't achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Wrong because we didn't control the security and produce a more

settled country with control of security, with our help,

So Iraq is in a worse state because of the decisions

about the peace and not about the war.

Tony Blair, when asked said, if he had to do it, he would do it

all again, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was correct,

I think the decision was wrong on the timing.

I think there were good reasons to get rid of a challenge

Saddam Hussein was undermining the authority of the Security

Council, but the timing was wrong and the lack of political support

Is the world a safer place post-Iraq War,

The jury is still out, undoubtably it made Iraq

an ungoverned space where terrorists have moved in, our interests

are affected, we are still involved with our military to some extent

It has not made the world a safer place, but the hypothesis

of Saddam Hussein still being there, would the world be

I think you could be forgiven for wanting a little bit more