The Foreign Service Journal, May 2007

cerning Iraq. As Britain’s lead negotiator of Security Council resolutions on Iraq, he recalls in his book, he devel- oped a “Rottweiler-like reputation … as the most effective and aggressive defender of British-American Iraq policy” on the sanctions regime and Iraq’s WMD programs. Doubts Surface It was in this context, however, that Ross began to devel- op qualms about the sanctions regime on Iraq, which, he says, “primarily served to punish and harm innocent Iraqi civilians.” Later, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he grew concerned about the rhetoric emanating from London and Washington, D.C., regarding Iraq’s purport- ed WMD programs. Ross’s exposure to all manner of infor- mation regarding these pro- grams over a five-year period convinced him that the case for war was being significantly overstated. He asserts that the claims made by the British gov- ernment about Iraq’s weapons programs were “totally implau- sible,” as he put it in the inter- view. In mid-2002, growing anxiety about British and American policy vis-à-vis Iraq led Ross to take a sabbatical at the New School University in New York, after which he sought out, and received, an assignment to the U.N. mission in Kosovo. While based in Pristina in June 2004, he submitted written testimony to the Butler Review, then resigned from the British Foreign Service shortly there- after. In his testimony, Ross wrote: “During my posting [at the U.K. mission to the U.N.], at no time did [the U.K. govern- ment] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the U.K. or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. I remember on several occasions the U.K. team stating this view during our discussions with the U.S. (who agreed). … At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the U.S. raised the subject, that “régime change” was inadvis- able, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.” With reference to the U.N. Security Council delibera- tions prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ross testified, “It is clear that in terms of the resolutions presented by the U.K. itself, the subsequent invasion was not authorized by the Security Council and was thus illegal. The clearest evi- dence of this is the fact that the U.K. sought an authorizing resolution and failed to get it.” In the March interview, an impassioned Ross said, “In all my career, I had been taught and believed that Britain stood not only for a world of rules but also for fair play and integrity. Many will think me disingenuous, but this was the rock on which I based myself as a diplomat, even when contradictions presented themselves, as they often had. But the decision to go to war was simply too much.” Even worse, Ross argues, was the failure of the U.K. and U.S. to “give sufficient attention to closing off Iraq’s illegal oil rev- enues which sustained the Sad- dam regime,” an issue on which he worked for several years. Says Ross, “This was a real alternative to war that was not pursued.” His decision to resign did not hinge solely on his despon- dency over British policy on Iraq. As the subtitle of his book, Dispatches from an Un- accountable Elite , indicates, Ross had developed profound concern regarding the entire enterprise of diplomacy; in par- ticular, the lack of accountability and the dearth of infor- mation affecting diplomats’ conduct. He explains: “The abiding feature of foreign policymaking is its closed, secre- tive and circumscribed nature. ... Policies are decided by small groups of officials and ministers based upon very par- tial (in both senses of the word) accounts of reality.” The undemocratic nature of diplomacy, Ross charges, combined with many diplomats’ lack of specialized knowledge — whether assigned to conflict-prone countries or to multina- tional institutions such as the U.N. and the E.U. — leads to decision-making largely detached from the needs and con- cerns of the people in the countries affected. Indeed, Ross identifies the very existence of a separate diplomatic corps within national governments as a problem unto itself: “The existence of diplomats reaffirms the sepa- rated nature of diplomacy and international relations from other areas of policy, when, in fact, they are inextricably con- nected,” says Ross. “Diplomats tend to be generalists who are unskilled in the complexities of global issues, from trade to terrorism, which now dominate our world. We need to promote multiple links at multiple levels between govern- ments, avoiding the narrowing and outdated structures of traditional diplomacy.” M A Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 As Britain’s lead negotiator of Security Council resolutions on Iraq, Ross was a zealous defender of the sanctions regime.