Sir Jeremy Quentin Greenstock GCMG (born 27 July 1943) is a British retired diplomat, active from 1969 to 2004.
Greenstock was educated at Harrow School and at Worcester College, Oxford. He was an assistant master at Eton College from 1966 to 1969. Greenstock joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1969 and served until 2004. He served in the British embassies in Washington, D.C., Paris, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Greenstock was the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations for five years, from 1998 [1] to July 2003 [2] where he attended over 150 meetings of the United Nations Security Council. From October 2001 to April 2003, he was Chairman of the Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee. [3]
In 2003 he acted as the head of a Security Council mission to West Africa to assess the UN activities there, including the work of United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. [4]
In September 2003, Greenstock was appointed the UK's Special Representative for Iraq, where he worked alongside Paul Bremer within the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Greenstock left his position in Baghdad in March 2004, on a timing agreed with the UK government.
Greenstock wrote a book about his role in the Iraq war that was expected to be released in autumn 2005, but was withdrawn from publication at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Greenstock appeared on the Charlie Rose talk show on 14 May 2008 and explained some of the contents of his book. During the interview he stated categorically that British and American leaders had known since 1998 that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapon capabilities or programs. [5]
On 27 November and 15 December 2009, Greenstock gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry regarding his time as ambassador to the United Nations. [6] [7]
After leaving the diplomatic service, Greenstock held numerous positions. He was the Director of the Ditchley Foundation until August 2010 and a Special Adviser to BP from July 2004 to June 2010. Currently[ when? ] he is the Chairman of the United Nations Association of the UK, as well as the Chairman of Gatehouse Advisory Partners and of Lambert Energy Advisory Ltd. He is an advisor to the International Rescue Committee-UK and to the NGO Forward Thinking, and a non-executive director of De La Rue.
He has three children - Katie, Nick, and Alexandra.
From 2007 until 2019 [8] he was King of Arms of the Order of St Michael and St George, the order's herald.
Iraq: The Cost of War – Greenstock's diary of events leading up to, during, and after the Iraq War, which was banned from publication in 2005 after an intervention by then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw – was published in 2016. [9]
The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999 and its mission lasted until June 2007.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on 8 November 2002, offering Iraq under Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions. The United States used it as part of the legal justification for the subsequent US-led invasion of Iraq.
Iraq actively researched weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and used chemical weapons from 1962 to 1991, after which it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians and military targets during the Iran–Iraq War. Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was an inspection regime created by the United Nations to ensure Iraq's compliance with policies concerning Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War. Between 1991 and 1997 its director was Rolf Ekéus; from 1997 to 1999 its director was Richard Butler.
Opposition to the Iraq War significantly occurred worldwide, both before and during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States–led coalition, and throughout the subsequent occupation. Individuals and groups opposing the war include the governments of many nations which did not take part in the invasion, including both its land neighbors Canada and Mexico, its NATO allies in Europe such as France and Germany, as well as China and Indonesia in Asia, and significant sections of the populace in those that took part in the invasion. Opposition to the war was also widespread domestically.
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Lewis Paul Bremer III is a retired American diplomat. He was the second de facto head of state of Iraq as leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, from May 2003 until June 2004.
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Sir David Geoffrey Manning, is a former British diplomat, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2007. He authored the so-called "Manning Memo", that summarized the details of a meeting between American president George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Until 2019, he was appointed to the Household of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Sir Richard Billing Dearlove is a retired British intelligence officer who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a role known informally as "C", from 1999 until 6 May 2004. He was head of MI6 during the invasion of Iraq. He was criticised by the Iraq Inquiry for providing unverified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
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All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
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The legality of the Iraq War is a contested topic that spans both domestic and international law. Political leaders in the US and the UK who supported the invasion of Iraq have claimed that the war was legal. However, many legal experts and other world leaders have argued that the war lacked justification and violated the United Nations charter.
The events of the first and second rounds of the Zimbabwean presidential election, which Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF won on 27 June 2008 after his challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), withdrew from the process and declared it illegitimate, caused reactions from many international bodies. Other Zimbabwean groups have denounced the poll as well
The Iraq Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry was announced in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and published in 2016 with a public statement by Chilcot.
Sir John Anthony Chilcot was a British civil servant.
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The 1980 United Nations Security Council election was held from 20 October to 13 November 1980 during the Thirty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly, held at United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The General Assembly elected Ireland, Japan, Panama, Spain, and Uganda, as the five new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 1981.