Putin was implacably opposed to American plans to invade Iraq, for many reasons. Russia had major business interests there; it worried that oil prices could slump if Iraqi oil flooded the market after the war; it bristled at what it saw as US unilateralism, overriding international decisions; it opposed the hidden agenda of regime change; it felt UN weapons inspectors should be allowed to continue their work searching for weapons of mass destruction; and it wanted to exhaust all of its own diplomatic avenues to persuade Saddam Hussein to back down or resign from office. Putin was fully signed up to the war on terror, but unlike Bush he did not regard Iraq as a state that sponsored terrorism.
The Russians were dismissive of the unconvincing presentation given by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on 5 February 2003, purporting to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ‘We were shown photos taken from space,’ Sergei Ivanov recalls, ‘huge trucks, juggernauts, carrying chemical weapons. They said that it was reliable evidence. We said, “Well, maybe you have this intelligence, but we don’t.”’12
Putin was not, however, initially inclined to spoil his budding relationship with George W. Bush by making a public stand. At first he stuck in his public pronouncements to a position of guarded support for American efforts to ensure Saddam’s disarmament. He told French journalists: ‘The only task facing the international community there is to satisfy itself that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction or to find them and force Iraq to destroy those weapons. In this connection we share the position of our American partners which is that we must do everything in order that Iraq would engage in a full-fledged cooperation with the UN inspectors.’
When he travelled to Berlin on 9 February for a short meeting with Chancellor Schröder, Putin warned that the ‘unilateral use of force against Iraq would only bring suffering to millions of people and further escalate tensions in the region’. But he also cautioned against stoking up anti-American sentiments.
His line became much tougher when he moved on the next day to Paris for a state visit, during which the three leaders issued a joint declaration condemning the use of force. The tripartite declaration was a French–German initiative. Schröder and Chirac had forged a very close relationship, which had culminated just the previous month in celebrations at Versailles to mark the 40th anniversary of the historic Elysée treaty of friendship between the two countries. According to Chirac’s adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne (known in diplomatic circles as ‘MGM’), ‘we were close allies of the Germans and knew they shared the same assessment of the Iraq situation, but we didn’t know about the other permanent members of the Security Council. The British were with the Americans, but what would the Russians and Chinese do? So it was utterly important for us to know what the Russians would do.’ He says that until they met, neither Putin nor Chirac felt absolutely sure that the other would be prepared to veto a second resolution, and neither wanted to end up doing it alone. Germany, as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, had a vote but no power of veto, so Schröder was relying on Chirac to cast the veto on his behalf – and to get Putin on board too.13
MGM and his German counterpart drafted a joint statement and agreed that Chirac would try to get Putin to sign up when he arrived in Paris from Berlin. The French laid on a lavish reception for him at Charles de Gaulle airport – military band, red carpet, guard of honour provided by the three services and the National Guard. Chirac even went to the steps of the plane to greet Putin and presented him with an imposing bouquet of flowers. MGM says it was all designed to flatter the Russian: ‘He wanted to show respect to Putin, to please him, and for the Russians to feel that they are a great country, and that they are a full partner in the international community.’ Flying into the city on an air force helicopter, Chirac showed Putin the text of the declaration, and he said yes right away, asking only for a few small changes. MGM and Putin’s diplomatic adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, went off to make the changes and agree them with Berlin. The declaration said: ‘There is still an alternative to war. The use of force can only be considered as a last resort. Russia, Germany and France are determined to ensure that everything possible is done to disarm Iraq peacefully.’
But in essence, says Gourdault-Montagne, it was a ‘pact’: ‘Putin, until that moment, had some doubts about France, because at that time there was a lot of talk to the effect that the French are showing their muscles, but at the last moment they will change their minds and go with the US. Now Putin knew that Chirac would impose a veto, and we knew the Russians would be with us. We knew that we were together.’
And Washington knew that if it went to war against Iraq it would have to be without the authorisation of the United Nations. Condoleezza Rice admits: ‘We didn’t much like this spectacle of America’s closest allies standing with the Russians on a security interest of the United States.’14
In the month before the war started, Putin undertook two rounds of secret diplomacy to try to avert it. On 22 February he sent one of Russia’s most experienced politicians, Yevgeny Primakov, to Baghdad. Primakov for some reason often attracts the epithet ‘wily’, and perhaps he is: he had opposed Putin’s rise in 1999 but later supported him; before that he had served as head of the foreign intelligence service, foreign minister and prime minister; most importantly, a Middle East expert, he had known Saddam Hussein for years, so he was ideal for this mission. At the time, when news of his trip leaked out, there was speculation that he might have been trying to persuade Saddam to destroy his Al Samoud 2 missiles. The foreign ministry, forced to say something, said his purpose was to ‘explain Russia’s position on Iraq and receive an assurance it would fulfil UN resolutions and cooperate “completely and unconditionally” with weapons inspectors’.
In fact, his mission was much more dramatic than that. Putin had charged him with only one task: to persuade Saddam to stand down and thereby save his country from invasion. Saddam listened to Primakov, took notes, asked him to repeat the message in front of his deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, then stood up, pressed his hand on Primakov’s shoulder and left.
Primakov flew back to Moscow and reported the bad news – first to Putin, then to a full meeting of the Security Council in the Kremlin. They had one last trick up their sleeves. It was agreed that Putin’s chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, should fly immediately to Washington to try one last time to talk the Americans out of their plan for war.
He arrived late at night and went to a restaurant with the Russian ambassador, Yuri Ushakov. They drank into the small hours, and then Voloshin suddenly got a call to meet the CIA director, George Tenet, at 8.15. ‘I’d only just got to bed,’ he recalled later, with a smile. From the CIA he was taken to the White House to meet Condoleezza Rice, and during their conversation President Bush ‘dropped by’ (the only way diplomatic protocol allowed the president to meet someone of Voloshin’s rank). ‘He made a ten-minute speech about the threat of international terrorism,’ says Voloshin. ‘He was very passionate, standing up rather than sitting. Then pleasantries. Twenty minutes in all. I told him we didn’t agree, but I felt he was not interested in my answers. He had made up his mind already so he wasn’t much worried about the arguments – only in whether we would support him.’ An American official confirms that ‘the president wasn’t there to listen to what Voloshin had to say and reply’.