12.1 |
Security Sector Reform
He
considers that an initial, fairly small, deployment of armed police
officers to Basra
would be
useful in the first instance. The idea being that they would seek
out credible
elements of
the local police force and encourage them (e.g. to act against
looters etc).
“To meet
this requirement, the International Policing Unit was looking to
recruit about
20 Ministry
of Defence Police officers, after the MDP [Ministry of Defence
Police]
had made a
short reconnaissance visit … Stephen Pattison said that he would
like
to see how
this initiative worked out, before deciding whether to ask the HO
[Home
Office] for
any assistance from other (i.e. ACPO) forces.”
201.
In his
response CC Kernaghan asked a number of questions about how the
UK
government
envisaged any civilian policing assistance fitting in with the
current military
role and
volunteered to visit Iraq “to consult with appropriate Coalition
commanders/
administrators
and assess the input the UK could make”.163
202.
CC Kernaghan
told the Inquiry that he was “quite clear” that he could
not
offer
valid professional advice unless he had “first hand exposure
to the realities of
203.
On 23 May, CC
Kernaghan reported to Mr Blunkett and Mr Straw on his
visit
to
Iraq the previous week, undertaken to assess the possibilities
for a UK police
contribution
to the Coalition effort and the scale of the task
involved.165
CC
Kernaghan
identified
a number of challenges that he judged the Coalition powers would
need to
overcome in
order to deliver effective law and order within Iraq:
•
The absence
of strategic direction or professionally informed planning. As
well
as the
disorganisation he encountered in ORHA (which he attributed in part
to
the
transition to the CPA), CC Kernaghan highlighted the absence of a
clear
plan from
either of the two Occupying Powers for maintaining law and order
or
operating
an effective criminal justice system. He observed that, in the
course
of his
visit, it had become apparent that the UK had been preparing for
the
potential
Occupation for some time and stated that it was a matter of
“regret”
that
professional police advice from the UK had not been sought until
April 2003.
•
Criminal
justice infrastructure was “totally degraded with police
stations,
courthouses
and prisons having been looted by the local population and in
some
cases their
own staff”. CC Kernaghan commented that: “Looting does not
do
justice to
the level of destruction inflicted and I can best liken the outcome
to the
progress of
locusts across a field of corn.” He suggested that a prison
facility
“meeting
minimum international standards was also a high priority” and
that
the old
Iraqi prison facilities that had been discovered indicated that
“humane
163
Email
Kernaghan to Home Office [junior official], 14 April 2003,
‘Potential UK civil police involvement
in Iraq’.
164
Statement,
9 June 2010, page 2.
165
Letter
Kernaghan to Blunkett, 23 May 2003, ‘Iraq – visit by Chief
Constable P R Kernaghan’ attaching
Report
Kernaghan, 10 May 2003, ‘Report on Visit to Iraq by Chief Constable
Kernaghan [13-20 May 2003]’.
103