TUESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2000

DR SUSAN WOODWARD, MRS ELIZABETH ROBERTS AND DAME PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES

  231. On behalf of the Committee, may I welcome our three witnesses this morning and thank the three of you for the excellent memoranda which have certainly helped us in our deliberations. We will be covering a very wide canvass, trying to look at some of the elements in relation to the past, those lessons, and also what is being done now to build on or seek stability in that region. Let me begin with a question to each one of you. Our job as a Committee is to monitor the FCO. We are here dealing with an alliance. We are not aiming to monitor the alliance as such. Can you give us some help as to the extent to which we can disentangle the role of the FCO within the alliance? Can you help the Committee, perhaps, in this respect by saying over the recent past in Kosovo whether there are specific criticisms of commission or omission in relation to the role of our own Foreign Office? I do not know who would be best to start? Dame Pauline, would you like to bite your former masters?
  (Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Thank you, Chairman. I suppose the general proposition is that the alliance functions obviously through the collective actions of all of its members but there are some countries that are more equal than others, without a doubt. I think it is true to say that there are four key countries: the US, the UK, France and Germany. That was true during the Cold War and it actually remains true. That is to say that the alliance is mobilised through the action of those four and in particular through the unity of those four. I think experience shows that when those four are not unified things do not happen. Now what does that mean? Obviously that means that those four countries bear perhaps more responsibility for what happens and what fails to happen than some of the other members. I think the first point to make is that if you are prominent in the alliance you actually do carry more of the can.

  232. Amongst the four the US is mightily dominant?
  (Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Mightily dominant.

  233. In your own memorandum you criticised what you called US "short termism", what is the evidence, for example, that the US is able to modify that short termism?
  (Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Very often the dialogue inside the alliance is the Europeans with the US. Sometimes the Europeans are agreed amongst themselves, sometimes they are not. When they are not you tend to get less leverage on the US. There is no doubt these days that American policy is influenced very greatly by domestic considerations, the relationship between the Executive and the Hill. When the Executive is weak, that does affect the extent to which the administration either has room for manoeuvre or is able to think longer term. I do not think there is any doubt—I think Bob Dole has said it and I think he is right—that at crucial moments during the whole Kosovo episode the Lewinsky factor was there. The President was very weak, he was not able to do things which he might otherwise have been able to do. I am not saying he would have done but I am sure it was a factor in the inability of the US to say things about potential use of ground forces which they might otherwise have been willing to do, now that was important. How much can the allies influence? I think they can influence in a sense up to the waterfront of the US politics. I think after that it does become extremely difficult for any ally, however persuasive, actually to take it further. One has an interaction between the big one, that is both its external influence and its internal decision making process that it has to master and its allies.

  234. Can you perceive a specifically British line during the conflict, or preceding the conflict and the conflict itself, and if so is that something you would wish to tell the Committee, positively or negatively, about that line?
  (Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think I have to be careful in that obviously I have been on the outside so my view of—

  235. After you left.
  (Dame Pauline Neville-Jones)—my view of the inside is less good than it might be. What I am going to say, I think, is an impression rather than knowledge which is that I think it is fair to say that the UK was, I think at all stages, seeking actually to get consistency out of the Alliance's attitude, also, and it is a classic UK role but a very important one, actually to prevent breaches across the Atlantic and visible gaps opening up between the US scene and what the Europeans were doing. It is quite often a thankless task but it remains an important one and I am sure it played a role there. I think the UK's assessment of the situation on the whole was fairly realistic. I think it suffered from the weakness of the Europeans inside the alliance which does in the end relate to the fact that they contributed relatively little to its military might and that is, I think, a big issue, and to both the dominance of the US and the nature of the US agenda at the time.

  236. That is helpful. I have not tempted Dame Pauline to criticisms but can I do so with you, Mrs Roberts?
  (Mrs Roberts) I think I have to say, Chairman, that my views can only be impressionistic as well. Certainly I saw the situation from the outside. I think from that perspective, one felt that the UK and the Foreign Office had quite a role in the driving seat. They did have a fair impact and at one stage were properly perceived—and I think there is probably some truth in this but it is difficult for me to say from the outside—as firming up morale when morale was somewhat wavering. I think the important point that I would want to draw out of that is that is reflected in the way that Britain is perceived in the region. In other words, I think if you went to the man in the street in Serbia today you would have a very negative reaction, by and large, outside the official opposition you would have quite a negative reaction to Britain's role, simply because they would be seen as a country that formerly was very, very close to Serbia, fought alongside them in two world wars and now has inexplicably changed. I am talking about the attitude of the average Serb. In Kosovo, of course, you would get a very positive reaction as we have seen where our partners have visited Kosovo and in Montenegro, also, I think the perception is generally very positive.

  237. Anything negative about the UK role?
  (Mrs Roberts) I think perhaps—and this is speaking with hindsight to some extent and this is probably not necessarily just the UK—there is some sign, one might say, that perhaps the thinking through of the whole operation had not gone as far as it should have. Many people would argue, and I remember hearing this view put forward by both Albanians and Serbs, only a few days before Operation Horseshoe got under way, many people had argued this was precisely what would happen. I think perhaps there was not enough thought given, I would not single the UK out for that in any way. Certain possibilities were very likely and they were recognised by people on the ground. I was astonished, I remember when I heard this scenario depicted I thought it could not be that bad, I have to say. I think we could have thought a little bit about what might have happened and perhaps the UK and the alliance should have been further ahead with political planning and the consequence of what was going to happen. I know it is a very difficult situation, it is easy to say that. I think it is vital that these operations are thought through and the political and military sides do not get out of synchronisation with one another.

  238. Positive and negative, Dr Woodward?
  (Dr Woodward) As you know I am an American resident here in London but I was in Washington at the time and while I have never been in the Government I was quite involved in the policy towards Kosovo so I feel I can comment both inside and outside. I think that the first thing I would like to say is that from about the middle of 1997 until March 1999, when the bombing campaign began, there was much greater disagreement within policy circles, including on Capitol Hill in Washington, about what to do towards Kosovo than there had been previously for example, with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those divisions were more like the divisions within the alliance and within Europe. Therefore, the British position to me was absolutely pivotal in the actions that were taken in 1999. Beginning even in the spring of 1998 but certainly in the summer and fall of 1998 it was the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister of this country that I think made the difference which we went along with. Whether one is critical or not depends on what one's view is of what happened.

  239. Your position?
  (Dr Woodward) My position, I would rather say, as I think I did in my memo, that I felt that there were very real opportunities for a diplomatic outcome beginning in 1997. I am very aware of this because I was proposing details and getting a reaction. In both Washington and in London the dominant view was focused on Slobodan Milosevic as the means of leverage and as the solution to the problem. Both negative and positive approaches were always focused on him. What Mrs Roberts has just said, including in my own view insufficient co-ordination between diplomacy on the one hand and questions about the use of force on the other, led us in the direction that it was not necessary. I simply do not accept the idea that by March 1999 bombing was the only choice available. In my view, my position is a critical one, there is no question about it. I do think that in terms of now it is worth asking where are we going. The best way for me to be critical or not over the last two years is to say are we now prepared, are you prepared here, is the alliance prepared to deal with still outstanding problems? By their nature they are not very different, issues of borders, human security, self-determinaion in the region, they are not very different than Kosovo itself. Certainly I hope, though I am very concerned, that we do not repeat the past. I am concerned because I see the way in which, for example, we are talking about Montenegro's problems and are beginning to talk about the Macedonia problems, we are talking about it in exactly the same patterns that we have been doing over the last ten years.

  Chairman: We shall be focusing on the future including Montenegro later but I would like to look at this further.