The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
662.
By the time
resolution 1483 was adopted, the CPA was already operating in
Iraq
under the
leadership of Ambassador L Paul Bremer, reporting to Mr Donald
Rumsfeld,
the US
Defense Secretary. There was no reporting line from the CPA to the
UK.
663.
The
resolution’s designation of the US and UK as joint Occupying Powers
did not
reflect the
reality of the Occupation. The UK contribution to the CPA’s effort
was much
smaller
than that of the US and was particularly concerned with
Basra.
664.
The UK took an
early decision to concentrate its effort in one geographical
area
rather than
accept a national lead for a particular element of the Coalition
effort (such
as police
reform). However, it was inevitable that Iraq’s future would be
determined
in Baghdad,
as both the administrative centre and the place where the power
shift
from
minority Sunni rule to majority Shia rule was going to be most
keenly felt. Having
decided to
concentrate its effort on an area some distance removed from the
capital,
the UK’s
ability to influence policy under debate in Baghdad was
curtailed.
665.
In Baghdad
itself, the UK provided only a small proportion of the staff for
the
military
and civilian headquarters. The low numbers were influenced in part
by
reasonable
concerns about the personal legal liabilities of UK staff working
initially
in ORHA
and then in the CPA, and what their deployment might imply about
the UK’s
responsibility
for decisions made by those organisations, in the absence of
formal
consultation
or the right of veto.
666.
The
pre‑invasion focus on a leading UN role in Iraq meant that little
thought
had been
given to the status of UK personnel during an occupation which
followed
an invasion
without Security Council authorisation. Better planning, including
proper
assessment
of a variety of different possible scenarios, would have allowed
such issues
to be
worked through at a much earlier stage.
667.
There was an
urgent need for suitably experienced UK officials ready to
deploy
to Baghdad,
but they had not been identified (see Section 15).
668.
No governance
arrangements were designed before the invasion which
might
have
enabled officials and Ministers based in London and Washington to
manage the
implications
of a joint occupation involving separate resources of a very
different scale.
Such
arrangements would have provided a means to identify and resolve
different
perspectives
on policy, and to facilitate joint decisions.
669.
Once the CPA
had been established, policy decisions were made
largely
in Baghdad,
where there was also no formal US/UK governance
structure.
This created a
risk described to the Inquiry by Sir Michael Wood, FCO Legal
Adviser
from 2001
to 2006, as “the UK being held jointly responsible for acts or
omissions
of the CPA,
without a right to consult and a right of joint
decision”.235
235
Statement,
15 March 2011, page 22.
90