The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
conducting
joint patrols with Coalition Forces; and
•
participating
in other activities designed to build positive relationships
between the
Iraqi
people and Coalition authorities including serving as community
liaisons.”
278.
The ICDC
operated under the authority of the Administrator of the CPA but
was
subject to
the supervision of Coalition Forces. Hard
Lessons stated:
“… Because
the ICDC was not part of the original CPA security sector plan, it
posed
significant
co‑ordination problems from its inception …There was little
coordination
with the
Iraqi police or army and no accountability to any Iraqi ministry or
the CPA.
“Some in
CMATT feared the ICDC could become a parallel security
structure,
competing
with the police in local affairs and diluting the Iraqi Army’s
authority at
the national
level. But Coalition commanders valued the ICDC as a way to
enable
Iraqis to
provide security for their own country, while supplementing
CJTF-7’s
[Combined
Joint Task Force 7] overstretched forces.” 234
279.
However, Major
General Andrew Stewart, General Officer Commanding
(GOC)
Multi‑National
Division South‑East (MND(SE))235
from
December 2003 to July 2004,
told the
Inquiry that he believed the ICDC “was a success”.236
He
described a visit
by
Lieutenant General David Petraeus, Commanding General, Office of
Security
Co‑operation
(the creation of the OSC is described later in this
Section):
“He
[Gen Petraeus] was responsible for the security sector, came
down, saw the
ICDC in
Basra in particular and went away pretty impressed about it, and
said
‘I haven’t
seen anything approaching this’.”
In
September 2003, Mr David Richmond, the Prime Minister’s
Special Representative on
Iraq,237
reported
that the US was preparing to set up an internal Iraqi intelligence
service
linked to
the police and the MOI. The interim Minister of the Interior told
Mr Richmond
that he was
keen to have UK advice on setting up an investigative branch and
a
counter‑terrorism
branch.238
DCC Brand
told the Inquiry:
“… an
opportunity arose for us to influence the direction in which the
development
of the
Iraqi Intelligence Service … was going to go … I argued over a
series of
meetings …
that, if we had a sort of special branch system … where the
intelligence
234
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience.
U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2009.
235
Multi‑National
Division South‑East is described in Box, ‘Multi‑National Division
(South‑East)’, later in
this
Section.
236
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, pages 74‑75.
237
Mr David
Richmond was temporarily the Prime Minister’s Special
Representative on Iraq. In September
2003 (on
the arrival of Sir Jeremy Greenstock), Mr Richmond became
the Deputy.
238
Telegram
150 IraqRep to FCO London, 4 September 2003, ‘Iraq: Briefing for
Prime Minister’.
118