Blair embarks on telephone diplomacy over Iraq
Tony Blair today embarked on a last-minute round of telephone diplomacy as hopes for a second resolution on Iraq began to fade and a second Gulf war loomed.
As the British Prime Minister called world leaders from Downing Street to try to get them behind a fresh resolution, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw conceded war on Iraq was “now much more probable” than before.
Ministers blamed the dwindling chances of a diplomatic solution to the crisis on France’s “intransigence” by promising to veto anything put before the United Nations Security Council.
And there were concerns about the toll the crisis is taking on the Prime Minister after Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke of the “the tremendous damage to his health”.
Mr Blair will fly the 1,500 miles to the Azores tomorrow for an emergency summit with US President George Bush and Spanish premier Jose Maria Aznar designed to salvage what they can of their second resolution.
But many believe the time for diplomacy is over and their talks will amount to a council of war.
The Prime Minister spoke to his deputy John Prescott, party chairman John Reid and other ministers at No 10 today to ensure he has the full backing of the Cabinet before flying in to the mid-Atlantic archipelago.
There was gloom in Downing Street as French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin restated his country’s intention to veto any resolution which authorised military action.
Even if the new resolution put before the Security Council receives the nine votes it needs, a veto by France, Russia or China would blow it out of the water.
Mr de Villepin told BBC2’s Newsnight on Friday that France would not let the six undecided countries on the Security Council take responsibility for the vote on a fresh resolution.
Dr Reid said his remarks were “disappointing”.
Addressing the party’s eastern conference in Clacton, after seeing the Prime Minister, Dr Reid said: “Is it any wonder that it is proving so difficult to reach agreement on a second resolution?
“If as a result of Iraqi non-compliance and French intransigence that is not possible, then it makes the diplomacy very, very difficult. But we will continue to work hard to change minds and get that second resolution.”
Dr Reid described Iraq’s submission to the UN that it had destroyed its stocks of the VX nerve agent 12 years ago was “just more game playing”.
He added: “If he (Saddam) had disposed of this material why wasn’t it in the original declaration?”
The Foreign Secretary also cast doubt on the submission in a clear sign that any concessions from Iraq are now too late.
The Iraqi report was “cynically calculated and calibrated to be the minimum possible to create diversion”, Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He added: “The prospect of military action is now much more probable and I greatly regret that.”
Although he insisted that war was still not inevitable, his remarks are the clearest signal yet by the British government that war is imminent.
Britain was satisfied it had the “full legal authority” under existing resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 to go ahead with a US-led war, and while a second resolution was preferable, it was not necessary.
Britain was trying for a second resolution to “maintain the same kind of consensus” as 1441.
“Very sadly that has not happened. But I think historians will judge that the reason that has not happened is not because of any failure by the United Kingdom to comply with 1441, but the fact that some member states have decided not to follow through the consequences of 1441 to which they fully signed up in November 2002.”
Veteran Labour MP Tam Dalyell described Mr Straw’s appearance on the Today programme as “a disgrace” and said he should be “relieved of his job forthwith”.
Mr Dalyell, Father of the House of Commons, and a persistent critic of the Government’s policy on Iraq, said: “He was just so muddled and incoherent that nobody could be convinced of the Government’s policy.
“The central issue which he failed to address was the issue of UN authority. How can he claim to be upholding UN authority when Kofi Annan, Secretary General, members of the Security Council and many others are diametrically opposed to his view?”
“Mr Straw is a disgrace as a Labour Party Foreign Secretary and he should be relieved of his job forthwith.”
The dissenting voices on Labour’s backbenchers, as well as the threat by International Development Secretary Clare Short, will do little to ease Mr Blair’s worries.
Mr Blunkett, fielding questions after a speech to the Kirklees Race Equality Council at the McAlpine Stadium, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, yesterday, said he had no plans to become Prime Minister, explaining: “Having seen what Tony Blair has had to put up with – the strain, the tremendous damage to his health and the enormous toll it has taken.”
