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ON THE RECORD
GEORGE ROBERTSON INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 15.11.98
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first Iraq. Yesterday afternoon it
seemed pretty simple: Saddam would not allow the United Nations weapons
inspectors to go about their work and America and Britain were planning to
attack. Today it's a bit more difficult. Saddam has made an offer which, on the
face of it, meets the requirements of the United Nations. But Britain and the
United States didn't accept it at least at first. Why not... and what happens
now? The Defence Secretary George Robertson is with me.
There is some confusion still I think
about this Mr Robertson. We had that initial letter from Saddam and it was
accompanied by a very complicated amendment or whatever you wanted to call it,
an annex I think he described it as. Have we accepted the, I don't know what
you'd call it, agreement that he has offered us?
GEORGE ROBERTSON: No we haven't. It's not all over now.
There's been a significant climb down of course by Saddam and only in the face
of the force that he expected was going to happen. But we've still got to bolt
down some of the assurances that he gave and although some movement was made
during the night and at the UN during the evening on a number of those issues,
I think before we can say that this is an agreement that would satisfy us in
terms of compliance we've got to know that his good faith is behind it and
is going to be delivered in a way that previous agreements were not delivered
when he reneged them.
HUMPHRYS: But we called off the attack. I mean you
presumably gave an order yourself not to attack during the night?
ROBERTSON: Well there was a decision taken not to
go ahead with the attack because a letter was going to be received and it was
only right and proper that it should be looked at. On the face of it not only
had it a number of weasel words about 'normal access' and 'in accordance with
the principles of' things that he'd already reneged on, it had nine apparent
conditions attached to that. Now during the night Ambassador Hamdoun of the,
for the Iraqi government made a number of clarifications which, you know, in
some ways were satisfactory but what we have to now make sure is that we've
nailed down these assurances, the devil is in the detail and the detail is
being clarified minute by minute by an ambassador and by a deputy Prime
Minister so I don't think that we can or we should be satisfied until we've
tested Saddam's good faith in a situation where over the last year in
particular but actually over the eight years since the Gulf War, he has
deceived, he has broken his word, he has been duplicitous, he has been even
murderous domestically. I think if we are going to remove the sanction of
force then before we do it we've got to be satisfied that he is going to
deliver what he says he's going to deliver.
HUMPHRYS: So go back to that annex to the letter
then with all those conditions in it, some of them on the face of it pretty
outrageous, I mean he wants to restructure UNSCOM the United Nations operation.
He wants to get rid of Richard Butler the Chief Inspector. He wants to
review sanctions within a very short time, seven days was the suggestion. Is
any of that going to happen?
ROBERTSON: No. I've said these are not conditions,
they are aspirations of the Iraqi government.
HUMPHRYS: Who said that then.
ROBERTSON: Well that would be interesting to know
and that's among the things that we're testing at the present moment. But of
course the Iraqis want the lifting of sanctions. They want the removal of the
inspections because they want to get ahead with their ambition to have weapons
of mass destruction, chemical weapons that they can threaten their neighbours
with. Now during the night they've said that these are no longer conditions
that they're simply long term aspirations that they would want to discuss but
they have nothing to do with the unconditional offer that they have made so
far. Now that is progress.
HUMPHRYS: We're prepared to do that are we? We're
prepared to discuss these long term conditions are we at this stage?
ROBERTSON: Well no we're not, certainly not at
this stage. What has been made clear absolutely is that we're not negotiating.
He has got one alternative and one alternative alone to avoiding military
action and that is to comply with the existing commitments that he has signed
up to and to his obligations to the Security Council and to getting rid of his
weapons of mass destruction. So there's no negotiation about that.
HUMPHRYS: So does he have to withdraw that then?
Does he have to withdraw that annex or are you prepared to say 'we'll leave
that sitting on the table and in the meantime we will call off the dogs'?
ROBERTSON: Well he has said that he's removed it
from the table. He says that these are not conditions, they have nothing
to do with the.... what he says is an unconditional offer to have the UNSCOM
inspectors back. Now that in itself is a significant climb down. So he has
started to climb down the ladder. What we've got to be satisfied with is that
he has actually reached the bottom of the ladder before we remove the threat of
force. So it isn't all over. The massive fire power that is there, that is
designed to back up this process of diplomacy will not be removed. The threat
to him and to his military capability is not removed until we're absolutely
certain that what he claims to be unconditional actually is unconditional and
we know what he means by unconditional.
HUMPHRYS: So we're back to where we were before?
Well we're bound to be aren't we?
ROBERTSON: Well no we're not. We have made a
significant advance because we were willing to stand up to him because we were
willing to threaten him with force. He has now withdrawn his decisions of the
fifth of August and the thirtieth of October to refuse access to the UNSCOM
arms inspectors.
HUMPHRYS: But they're going back in?
ROBERTSON: Well he has said that they can go back
in there. He has now, or his representitives are now saying that they will
have unconditional and immediate access to any sites where they believe there
are weapons of mass destruction. That is his claim. What I'm saying to you is
that that is not satisfactory given his track record, given the duplicity with
which he has treated previous agreements. We have to be satisfied before we
remove the threat of force that he's going to actually deliver on what he says,
that there is good faith behind it, that he perhaps personally is subscribing
to it. We've got to be satisfied on all of these grounds before you can
actually take away the one mechanism that has brought him to this point.
HUMPHRYS: So we have to be back precisely where we
were before this whole thing began, in effect. I mean we are now saying to him
do it, let us in immediately or we attack you. Is that the effect?
ROBERTSON: Yes, but more than that, because that's
what he's saying. He is trying to make out at the moment that in that letter
last night and the clarifications that took place during the night, that he is
going to give the arms inspectors unfettered immediate access to all of these
sites. We are saying we've heard that before.
HUMPHRYS: Quite.
ROBERTSON: We, in the past have been told like in
February of this year when he signed the agreement with Kofi Annan, that he was
going to allow unfettered access. He has reneged on that just as he reneged on
a whole ... a lot of the substance of the post .. the ceasefire agreements of
ninety-ninety-one. So we'll need to be more satisfied than we can be at the
present moment.
HUMPHRYS: But what more can we get as it were. I
mean if he has now said, you can come in, you can do what you want to do, and
in the long term we'll talk about it.... What more can he actually do now?
ROBERTSON: He still uses weasel words inside this
letter. He still talks about normal duties in accordance with the relevant
resolutions, and upon what was agreed in the memorandum of understanding.
HUMPHRYS: So are you saying he's got to withdraw
those words, right.
ROBERTSON: No, not withdraw those words, he's got
to clarify these words, he's got to clarify what is meant by that, and he's
got to be absolutely sure in what it is he's saying to the United Nations about
what will be different this time with this agreement than was in place in
February of this year.
HUMPHRYS: But does it matter what he says? I mean
whatever he says, he will back down on. As Tony Blair has said, you know, you
can't trust a word the man says, so what does it matter whether he clarifies
anything or doesn't clarify it? It doesn't make any difference does it?
ROBERTSON: Well, of course it makes a difference
because for seven out of the eight years since the end of the Gulf War the
UNSCOM inspectors have uncovered huge capabilities that he denied at the end of
the Gulf War that he had.
HUMPHRYS: And left uncovered a lot.
ROBERTSON: That is what we believe, but at the same
time, you know, they have found and destroyed SCUD missiles, they've found and
destroyed warheads, both chemical and biological weapons. They have proved
that he had a biological weapons capability that he'd denied all along because
his son-in-law defected to the West. Before he went back and was executed he
informed us and the inspectors of where the biological capabilities were, so
don't let us underestimate the success that the UNSCOM inspectors have had in
the past, and how necessary that kind of job is for the future, to make sure
that he does not continue to threaten his neighbours and indeed the stability
of the rest of the world. So we're not talking about something that is
academic here, we're talking about a regime of inspection that has worked in
the past, that we want to work in the future, but simply getting a letter from
him that says: hands up - I know you're going to bomb me so I'm going to give
in, that's not enough but it'still a very significant move from the situation
last week where he was saying under no circumstances are the inspectors going
to come back, under no circumstances would he give access to any sites, any
sites, never mind the sensitive sites, and where he was defying the United
Nations completely and totally, so the use of force or the threat of force has
persuaded him to move substantially, but not yet in our view far enough.
HUMPHRYS: But we haven't - we're not planning to
withdraw those forces. Our British forces as far as you're concerned, your
order to the British forces as of now, is to stay exactly where they are and to
be fully prepared for action immeditely if necessary. Is that the case?
ROBERTSON: Absolutely. They remain on station,
they remain on alert, and these are very brave people who are facing these
risks I think with enormous professionalism and distinction, but they remain in
place to make sure that Saddam either delivers on his word or to be able to
diminish his capability for threatening his neighbours.
HUMPHRYS: But you can't keep forces on a state of
full alert indefinitely can you. Sooner or later you have to stand them down,
and the minute you do that you've no way of knowing whether the man is going to
start messing about again.
ROBERTSON Well, if you stand things down you can
stand things up again, but at the moment we stand alert. You know this is a
crisis, a substantial crisis, but remember that it was only yesterday at the
very last minute that Saddam finally decided on the brink of the military
action that had been threatened, said he was going to allow the inspectors
back. Up until then, up until something like one o'clock yesterday, up until
that moment, he said no inspectors, no access, no chance of getting back at all
into any of the sites in Iraq. They had broken every one of their deals, but
at one o'clock they changed, and the reason they changed is that they knew that
they were going to face an attack on his military capabilities, not on the
people of Iraq, not on the cities of Iraq, but a forensic and massive hit on
his capabilities.
HUMPHRYS: Insofar as any attack can be forensic.
But the point is you cannot - what you can't do I would suggest to you is - it
wasn't me indeed that suggested it in the first place, it was General De la
Billiere, Peter De le Billiere this morning, who commanded our forces in the
war of course. He says you cannot act like the grand old Duke of York
indefinitely, you can't march your troops up to the top of the hill and
somebody say, alright I'll give you the letter that you want and you know -
and then march them back down, and then march them back up, and that's what
we've been doing. So at what point do you say: either we change our strategy
or God knows what we do.
ROBERTSON: Well, there's a very tight window here
within which Saddam has got to convince us.
HUMPHRYS: How tight?
ROBERTSON: Well, I'm not going to tell
you.
HUMPHRYS: But are we talking about days?
ROBERTSON: Well, I'm not going to say, but is a
very tight window that is there for him to accept unconditionally and prove to
us that he is accepting unconditionally the conditions of compliance laid down
by the UN Security Council. So the threat is there, it has already moved him,
he is on the way down the ladder, climbing down the ladder, but has not reached
the bottom. When we're statisfied that he has, and we've been satisfied that
assurances are bolted into place then that might be the time when the military
threat is removed. He's not got weeks and months to go which he can spin out as
he's done.....
HUMPHRYS: Oh, he hasn't got weeks to go, right
okay, so you mean that you would even consider lowering the state of readiness
of British forces, and presumably the same goes for the United States, because
you are working together on this, even before he has allowed those inspectors
back in to do their job. I mean is that not the condition that you are
imposing that you will not withdraw those forces or lower their state of
readiness until he has allowed the weapons inspectors back in and let them get
on with their jobs, so we've actually got concrete evidence, not just his word?
ROBERTSON: Well it's a sort of good long question
but I'm not going to answer it for good and sensible reasons that I'm not on
this programme to discuss the operational details...
HUMPHRYS: It's not an operational detail...
ROBERTSON: Oh yes it is....
HUMPHRYS: No, that's a matter of very very basic
principles......
ROBERTSON: I'm saying to you that it is now widely
known that forces were on the move yesterday against him. At the last minute
he decided that he was going to give in and change his position very
significantly from before, maybe not enough but very very significantly indeed.
So these forces remain on alert, absolutely on alert, and as and when we're
satisfied that he is going to comply and that the assurances are nailed down
and that we can be satisfied on the basis of his good faith then we'll look at
the situation again. But until then he's got to realise that force is still
imminent.
HUMPHRYS: Isn't this, to change this sort of
mildly but not very much, isn't this a slightly odd time to be talking about
running down our territorial army, the armed forces, the way we are at the
moment? The Strategic Defence Review said there was going to be a reduction or
suggested a reduction from fifty-nine thousand to forty thousand and there's
going to be an announcement about that tomorrow. Well, I mean, is that what
you're actually planning to do?
ROBERTSON: We're going to certainly trim the
numbers of the Territorial Army......
HUMPHRYS: By that sort of figure?
ROBERTSON: Well we said to around forty thousand.
The actual numbers in the Territorial Army are about fifty-six thousand. So
we're taking... we're reducing the numbers by about sixteen thousand. But at
the same time we're going to strengthen the Territorial Army. We're going to
reconfigure it, modernise it as we have done with all of our troops in the
Strategic Defence Review. We're going to give it better training, more
relevant training, roles and duties which are actually to do with tomorrow's
threats and not yesterday's threats because a big section of the Territorial
Army is there and training for an impending Soviet invasion of the United
Kingdom. So we want it better integrated with the Regular Army. We want it
more readily available and readily available informed units and we're going to
make the investment that will make that possible. So we're actually going to
strengthen the Territorial Army as we're going to strengthen the Naval and the
Air Force Reserves at the same time.
HUMPHRYS: Do other members of your cabinet agree
because Donald Dewar didn't did he? He didn't like the idea of cutting the
forces the way you've described it and it may well be that you won't get the
support of your colleagues in the cabinet.
ROBERTSON: The Secretary of State for Scotland was
making a point on behalf of Scotland as it's his job to do and a private matter
to me and he was making these comments on the basis of a consultative document
that had not been endorsed by ministers but was put out for the purposes of
consultation. I've listened to Donald Dewar and I've listened to the
Territorial Army, to those who are represented in the Territorial and Voluntary
Reserve Associations.
HUMPHRYS: And you've taken all that on board?
ROBERTSON: All of that is on board and when
Parliament is told this week what the outcome is I believe that most people in
the country will recognise that we have got a better equipped, better trained,
more integrated Territorial Army with roles and duties that will fit them for
the future on a much more satisfied and valued and motivated Territorial Army.
HUMPHRYS: Most people including Donald Dewar?
ROBERTSON: I believe Donald Dewar will be happy
with the final outcome as indeed will the Welsh Secretary who made
representations as well. They were making points about the way in which the
eventual shape would be not about the desire we have, the commitment we have to
make it more relevant and I believe militarily and politically we have produced
a solution that will give the Territorial Army a much better future.
HUMPHRYS: Right, another quick thought then and
that is the Queen's Flight; I see that you are advertising in the Aviation
Press this week for somebody to come along and say, 'We'll run the Queen's
Flight. Let's privatise it.' So are we going to see the Queen flying Virgin
or Go or something or other? Having to buy her own sandwiches? Easijet
perhaps? One of those things?
ROBERTSON: Oh now come on, come on. At the express
wish of the Royal Family we are looking at what other costings might be for the
kind of travel that they do. It's their express wish that these adverts are
there, that the market is tested.
HUMPHRYS: So they asked you to do it?
ROBERTSON: Yeah, of course they have every right to
do it. They control the budget of their own travelling and they have every
right to make that test. The Royal Family chose to fly by a private helicopter
arrangement earlier this year as was their perfect right to do so. If the
Royal Family want to see whether there are better and cheaper, more cost
efficient ways of doing it they're entitled to do it, that is why the market is
being tested. There is no more significance in it than that. It's at their
express wish and why should I not?
HUMPHRYS: So anybody could be running the Queen's
Flight then? It could be Virgin? It could be who knows?
ROBERTSON: Well the only people who'll be able to
do it are those who are able to satisfy very taxing requirements for carrying
the Royal Family of this country.
HUMPHRYS: I'll bet Richard Branson would say he
could wouldn't he?
ROBERTSON: Well in the modernisation of the Royal
Family one of the aspects that they took control of themselves was how best
they would handle their travel whether it was by rail or by air or by sea.
That is a decision that they can take and that they should take. I'm simply
responding to their request to look to see whether there are different and
better ways of doing it but the Royal Air Force itself will clearly want to
have an input into that and as Defence Secretary so will I.
HUMPHRYS: Well wonderful thought. So no
bicycling monarchy but an Easy Jet monarchy. We shall see. George Robertson
thank's very much indeed.
ROBERTSON: Pleasure.
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