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AMBASSADOR PLEUGER
Last September, last November actually, resolution 1441. When it was finally passed, what did you think it meant?
Well let me first say that on the 8th November when that resolution was passed I had just arrived in New York so I was not present at the initiations but right after my arrival I became observer in the Security Council because as of the 1st January we had been elected for 2 years being a member on the Council and therefore of course we were thinking what 1441 meant and 1441 first of all meant that the Security Council had found back its unity, its unity of purpose and thereby was able to send out a very strong political message especially to Mr Saddam. The second point was that this resolution most probably changed the attitude of the Saddam government to the inspections because before obviously they had been playing games and now they saw that the Security Council means business. And therefore from report to report of the inspectors the performance improved and the co-operation of the Iraqi government also improved. And that was one of the reasons I think that 11 members of the council up to the day when the war started felt that we had a good chance of disarming Iraq peacefully, which was the purpose of all members of the council by giving the inspectors a little more time to trying to do their job.
But on the crucial question of whether it authorised the use of force which it later emerged that everyone had different issues on, what was your position on that?
Well the resolution 1441 is ambiguous about it and you could argue that this resolution already laid the foundation also military action and it is quite possible that the members of the Security Council would have shared this view if all other avenues had been explored but I think the majority of the council was of the opinion that the resort to military force could be only the last resort and as the inspectors had always told us we need another 3 or 4 months to finish our job, people felt this was anyhow necessary to explore all other lines and all other possibilities for peaceful disarmament of Iraq. Then another element is course had it been so clear that 1441 was giving a mandate to use military force why then has the coalition - that is US, Britain, Spain - introduced a second draft resolution which was never put to the board.
When you took over as President of the council, you came onto the council in January, how did you ratet the chances of a peaceful outcome over that of a war?
Well, at that time I think I was pretty pessimistic already because when the first Gulf War took place in 1991 I was political minister in Washington and at that time we also thought that the problem of the Kuwaiti occupation could be settled by peaceful means but then at a certain point in time when we saw that about 200,000 or more troops had been assembled around, it was quite clear that you cannot maintain the posture of such a military build up for an indefinite period of time. And if then a political solution is not found very quickly then the road to military action is more or less inevitable. And when we took over the presidency in the month of February that military build up had gone so far already that the likelihood of war was coming closer and never the less of course we have tried everything to prevent this war. This war we did not want. And we did everything to give the inspectors a chance to do the job that we all wanted peacefully.
Dominique de Villepin… has said that he felt in the middle of January that you were working towards a war time table that was what was dictating the pace of events. Do you think that was…do you share that view?
I think there were 2 agendas. There was a political agenda and a military agenda and in the end the military agenda overtook the political agenda.
What did you make of Colin Powell's address to the council on the 1st Feb?
Well at that time of course we were quite impressed. Colin Powell was very eloquent foreign minister and he had assembled an enormous number of facts and pictures and so on, but already shortly afterwards it turned out that some of the facts assembled seemed to be false. First of all we got the information that the British intelligence report ,to which he referred very extensively, was a copy of a student's work, 12 years old, and taken over with all the mistakes, even autographic mistakes, I understand. And a week later Dr Blix told us that some of the pictures that were shown to us before and after actually had been taken at completely different times, weeks apart, and that the vehicle that was shown, and supposedly a decontamination vehicle, in reality was a red painted fire fighting car but the picture was black and white and so you couldn't see that exactly. So there were always these doubts whether the intelligence that was presented to us was real. And the third element which came up also a little bit later was the question of the yellow cake which was then analysed by the international Atomic Energy Agency as a crude fake so putting that all together rasied some doubt s about the evidence produced in the security council.
About that time was when my Rumsfeldt made some … comments about old and new Europe. How did that affect your work here?
Well as I said Old Europe still has good vision.
But did it make things difficult? Did it heighten the temperature?
No I don't think so because you know after these remarks we had a Security Council meeting with the foreign ministers and some of the foreign ministers including Mr Fischer and Mr De Villepin, very proudly proclaimed that they were speaking for old Europe and then the British foreign minister Mr Straw started to his intervention by saying I am also coming from an old European country, founded by the French founded by the French, so I don't think that heightened the temperature of the discussion but people were rather amused.
When it became apparent that you were going to have to make a choice about whether or not you supported a second resolution and the consequences of that, what did you say to your government about the consequences of opposing the American and British position?
Well we have said at a very early stage that we would not participate in a war in Iraq and the Chancellor himself said that during the electoral campaign and that was very often interpreted here and also in other countries in the press as an electoral campaign gimmick. Certainly that was not an electoral campaign gimmick but the basis of what the Chancellor said during the electoral campaign was in a very cool and clear analysis of the foreign office analysing the possible benefit and the risks of a military conflict in that area and in Iraq. And the conclusion to which we had come and in which we felt confirmed right now was that the risks of such an action by far outweighed the possible benefits and therefore it was only consequent when we tried in the Security Council to avoid this war and to use all possibilities of having the inspectors doing their job.
But you must have made an assessment of the political risks of taking the position you did in terms of what .. of how the Americans would see it?
Well I think that even among close friends you have differences of view and we tried to make understood what our position was and what our risk analysis was and the Americans have tried to make their position known in the Security Council and the effect was that from the 1st January when we joined to Council up to the 17th March when the war began there were 11 members of the 15 members of the council who had the same position as we were. And that was the reason I think why the British-American resolution was never put to the vote and to take such a decision is of course a decision that not only pertains to the bilateral relationship between American and Germany or to the European/ Atlantic relationship but it is also a matter of principal and a matter of national foreign policy and a matter of credibility of the government.
Can you describe that last week? Because it was very exciting wasn't it? it was very dramatic.
Well the whole period in the security council before the war broke out was very dramatic and I think it was unprecedented that in one month in our presidency that we had 3 open debates in the security council with an attendance of foreign ministers. And this showed I think that this was a n issue that everybody took very seriously, everybody was aware that this was not just one more controversial discussion that had taken place in the security council but that this was a matter of war and peace, where many people could be killed, where the consequences for the whole region could be very serious and where of course not only the transatlantic relationship could be affected but also the unity of Europe as we have seen. And so I think the Iraq businesa has been a time that has been very divisive, divisive in the council, divisive in the transatlantic relationship and also divisive for Europe and we will now have to see, now that this world is over and we are faced with a new situation how we can build on that.
What was it like for you personally? I mean you had just arrived very shortly before hand and found yourself being President of the Council during this extraordinary period?
Well I wasn't a newcomer when I came here because my first assignment was the United Nation's mission in New York the early 70s and I have been UN director in Bonn for 5 years so I knew the business, I knew the city and I knew the whole of the United Nations when I came here but sitting on the Security Council and taking over the presidency at such a critical and interesting time, that of course is a challenge, but it's a challenge that you take on and of course that is a sort of professional highlight in your professional life.
Tell me about the negotiations for 1483, the new resolution. How complicated and difficult did you find those?
Well not as difficult as the previous negotiations for a number, and for a variety of reasons. First of all, after all the discussions before the war, the fighting really mood in the Council ebbed out a little but. The second point was that the war that most of us didn't want was over and we were faced with a new situation that we had to address and it was obvious that once the Saddam region was gone there was no treason to punish the Iraqi people with sanctions that had been directed against the Saddam regime. And if we wanted to lift the sanctions we had to act and the first draft resolution that was presented by the US of course had other elements that made sure that the occupying powers had more or less total control of the situation and the international community and the United Nations were practically kept out of everything and initially that was presented to us more or less on a take it or leave it basis and it then turned out in the discussion that this would not be viable and therefore we had 3 revisions of this draft resolution and I think that in the end we achieved - perhaps not an ideal resolution - but a resolution that confirmed on the one hand what is laid down in the fourth Geneva convention and in the Hague regulation anyway and that is the executive powers and the responsibilities of occupying powers but at the same time it also opened up the door for - a little bit at least - for a participation of the UN in the political process in Iraq and also in the economic reconstruction process and by creating certain institutions such as the advisory and supervisory board for the Iraqi Reconstruction Fund it also provided a little bit more transparency or the possibility for both the political and the economic process and then when the Secretary General chose Sergio de Mello, as the special representative I think he made a very good choice, first of all because de Mello represents great experience in the UN system. He has been in many conflict Commissioner for human rights which is an important job which he will have to do in Iraq as special representative of the secretary general.
But he has gone to Iraq with a pretty minimal role hasn't he?
I am confident that a personality like Sergio de Mello will inflate this role and make the best use of his possibilities.
When you say the door was open a little for the UN to be involved in political and economic structures, it really was a very little wasn't it? I mean all the big decisions remain in the hands of the authority.
Yes that is true but if we did not have this resolution it would have been the same because the authority was on the ground and they would have taken the decisions that they are now taking anyway so I think in politics you don't have to think it terms of good or bad or right or wrong but in terms of alternatives and the alternative would have been that the UN and the international community would have been completely out because the occupying powers were on the ground, had all the possibilities to exercise their power and therefore we felt that although this resolution did not fulfil any expectations of member states - nobody was jubilant after it was adopted - but we felt that this was an alternative that was better than the other one.
What do you feel about the fact that as we are speaking there are no signs of weapons of mass destruction being founds in Iraq?
Well that was one thing that some of us always expected because before the war in all the discussions we heard from the inspectors that - especially in the nuclear field - most probably UNSCOM had already destroyed most of what was there and when Blix told us that he would be able to make his final report in 3 to 4 months that also meant that there could not be very much. And the third point was as I said before that we had quite a few doubts on very hard indications that the intelligence that was presented to us was not very real.
So why do you think America went to war?
I think that is a very complicated question and I think that you cannot five an answer that is monocausal, There was certainly a variety of different elements that lead to the decision and you have to see that also I think in a certain time frame, to give you a clear answer on that you'd better ask the Americans.
Could I just ask you some broader questions about the UN after this episode. You talked a bit about this but how much damage do you think was done to the institution and in particular to the Security Council by what happened?
Well I had always fought against the myth that the Iraq war was a failure of diplomacy and a failure of the Security Council. I don't think so. The Security Council has offered - at least this was the conviction of a large majority of the Security Council more than two thirds majority of the Council - that we have provided the necessary instruments and means to fulfil all the Security Council resolutions that had been passed before. We were convinced that we could peacefully disarm Iraq and that the inspectors could do their job successfully. So the Security Council has not failed and Security Council cannot be held responsible of the decisions that are being taken outside the Council. And in the Council I think the Council has made it clear by non-decision that it did not want this war. Because there was a draft resolution on the table authorising military action and this draft resolution was never accepted, was never put to the vote. And so the conclusion is that by non-decision, the Council took the decision that it did not want to go to war.
But it didn't have any effect. The war happened.
But that is normal because the United Nations and the Sec Council is not a world government. The United Nations is a standing conference of member states, and a standing conference of member states can only do what member states allow it to do. And if a member state, especially the most powerful member state, decides to act on its own, nobody can prevent that.
So is it to that extent a moment for recognising that the role of the UN is actually slightly more modest than we have thought in the past, especially in an era when there is one member state that is so much more powerful than the others? There are some things that the UN simply can't do?
Well that depends on the political will of member states. First of all I think we have to recognise as Kofi Annan just said, the United Nations is much more than the Iraqi crisis and that is true for the security field. If you look at the map of the world right now and see where the real crises are, where the people are really dying in a great number, that is Africa, in Eastern Congo, in ?Bunya in Cote D'Ivoire, and in other places the UN is doing a very good job in conflict prevention, in conflict management and in peace building. Look at Afghanistan for example, where the international community and the UN are involved, but beyond the security field, the UN is one of the largest agencies for humanitarian assistance. It is an organisation that creates new international law. It is an organisation that does not form the political will in the world, but that reflects political problems and political trends and by this reflection also changes things in the world. A good example is the de colonisation process. I think had not the UN accompanied this process in the 60s and 70s, the process would have been much longer drawn in time and also much bloodier I think. And look at the conceptsS of international development, the development conflicts of the 70s have influenced the development policy of most of the member states and of most of the developing states. So that UN has more than 150 specialist agencies who are doing a very good job in practically all fields, spreading the spread of dangerous diseases through the WHO and so on. So the UN is much more than one simple crisis and I think the Security Council has a role to play in the future too, that does . . . .I will not deny that the UN has its deficiencies, structurally and as far as procedures are concerned.
But if you look at it from the American perspective and from George Bush's perspective, he issued a challenge to the United Nations. He went into the process because he was told that he might be able to build a coalition behind his policy if he did so. He came out of the process with division far greater than it was when he went into it. So from his perspective it was a failure wasn't it, which is very damaging because America was such a political partner in the UN.
Well I don't know what his perspective is, and whether this perspective will remain his perspective but I think at least we Europeans think that sometimes in international politics you have to resort to military force. We have done so when we all felt it was necessary. We have done it together with the Americans in the first Gulf War when we had a common cause. This time we did not have a common cause. We have done it together with the Americans even without a Security Council resolution in Kosovo. And in the end it brought it back to the UN and the Security ouncil after we had drafted resolution 1244 which ended the Kosovo war in the G8 framework so I think that, as Fischer once said, the Europeans are not from Venus and the Americans from Mars, the Europeans are the survivors of Mars and we are ready to provide a military force if necessary and inevitable but on the other hand I think we all realise and the Americans I think will realise that too that, if you want to build a sustainable durable order, military might and political might is not enough to do the job. What you need is partners who co-operate voluntarily and that is an element that has gotten perhaps a little too much on the back burner recently.
Do you think Germany is being punished at the moment by the Americans?
Oh no, not punished
But in one sense, in all daily dealings here the Americans are taking it out on them for taking the position..
No we are happy with ourselves. We are happy within in the European Union where we feel safe and well, we are happy as a member of NATO in the transatlantic relationship and we don't have to be kissed every day
And by the sound of it optimistic about the future of the UN as an institution.
I think there is nothing that could replace United Nations and if the United Nations were dissolved today, tomorrow we would invent something very similar. But we certainly have to adapt the United Nations all the time. Kofi Annan has I think introduced a number of very important reforms within the system within the secretariat. More than any of his predecessors and these reforms bear fruit already. But never the less there is a lot of reform work to be done, revival of the General Assembly. How to manage the General Assembly with 191 members is very difficult because it is a circle that is too large to a real discussion. The Security Council that we have been discussing since 1992 has not been achieved as yet and it will be important to do the necessary reforms to adapt the institutions in their structures and in their decision making procedures that will be necessary, but the UN will survive as all I think.
And those reforms for you would include a bigger sec council to include Germany?
As you know we have said that if we were asked to take a permanent seat on the Security Council that we would do so. Not to play big power but because we think that it's useful not only for us but also for the United Nations. I think in the long run it is in possible to accept that whatever decision is being taken on the Council Japan and Germany are on it whether are on the Council or not with 30 % of the cost. And I think that no tennis club or any other club is run that way. You have to accept reality if you want to keep big providers of resources in the club, you have to give them a say in some of the most important organs in the club. But we have never seen the Security Council reform as a means of getting Japan and Germany on the Council, as a permanent member, that's not the purpose. The purpose was always to say that the structure of the council today reflects 1945 and the world has changed in the meantime. And we have now 191 members of the United Nations. When the council was founded it was 51 and 11 of them were in the council. - that was 20%, more than 20 %. Now we are in the situation were Latin America, Asia and Africa are completely under represented on the Council. And the legitimacy and the acceptance of Council decisions depends also on the fact that all the member states are somehow feeling that they are representative of that council, that this Council is acting on their behalf and that certainly is not the case as far as the Permanent 5 are concerned because they are not elected whereas the 10 elected members feel that sort of responsibility. And nowadays the political psychology has changed. In 1945 the idea was that there is nothing between the P5 and God and nowadays of course people feel that the Security Council is something like a government that should be responsible to the parliament and the parliament is the General Assembly. That is a different concept of the Security Council and I think that is the more modern concept. And I think we will have to think about how to run the Security Council in the future and how to relate to this responsibility that the Council has towards the General Assembly and towards world affairs in general; I think in the long run it will not be acceptable that some members or one member of the council tries to instrumentalise it for its own national policy. That will kill the legitimacy and the acceptance of council decision.
Is that a bit what was happening in the Iraq crisis do you think?
A little.
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