Sir Jeremy Greenstock tells inquiry that war 'did not have backing of great majority' of UN states

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

The invasion of Iraq was legal but of "questionable legitimacy" because the US and UK had failed to persuade other countries of the need for war, the then-British ambassador to the UN told the Chilcot inquiry today.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock said: "I regard our participation in the military action in Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of [UN] member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the UK."

Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign if the UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Iraq in the lead-up to the invasion.

He and others in the British delegation to the UN believed a resolution was "essential if any military action was to be regarded as internationally legitimate".

The diplomat also said he had put pressure on the government to give greater consideration to delaying the invasion until October 2003, but that the "momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter".

The UN security council approved resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002, paving the way for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq.

But Britain and the US were unable to get a second resolution directly authorising war after they had argued that Saddam Hussein was not cooperating with inspectors and was playing for time.

The lack of a second resolution led critics of military action to argue that the invasion was illegal under international law – a claim the British government has always denied.

Before the first resolution, there were differences between Washington and its team of diplomats at the UN assembly in New York.

That resulted in a complex set of negotiations between the British and American delegations at the UN, George Bush's administration in Washington, and the British government over what the resolution might say and how to ensure that it was passed.

Greenstock said he would have been "most uncomfortable" with UK military participation in the invasion of Iraq happening without a resolution.

"I myself warned the Foreign Office in October [2002] that I might have to consider my own position if that was the way things went," he said.

In a written statement to the inquiry and responses to questions at the hearing in London today, he also criticised Washington's belligerence.

"The UK's attempt to reconstitute a consensus had only a slim prospect of success, made slimmer by the recognition by anyone else following events closely that the United States was not proactively supportive of the UK's efforts and seemed to be preparing for conflict whatever the UK decided to do," he said.

"These noises off were decidedly unhelpful to what I was trying to do [at the UN] in New York."

He said the US push towards war hampered efforts to achieve a second resolution.

"It seemed to me that the option of invading Iraq in, say, October 2003 deserved much greater consideration," he added.

"But the momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter.

"The prime minister's arguments for more time, as I observed them from New York, appeared to win two weeks or so of delay, but no more.

"The second resolution as we designed it for March 2003 might have taken on a different shape and character on a different timing."

Questioned by the inquiry panel, Greenstock said he had been kept in the dark about private discussions taking place between Tony Blair and Bush.

He said he realised there had been a shift in thinking following the two leaders' meeting at Bush's ranch in Texas in April 2002.

"It wasn't until the Crawford meeting of 2002 that I realised the UK was being drawn into quite a different discussion. That discussion was not totally visible to me," he said.

"I was not being politically naive, but I was not being politically informed either."