The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
542.
On 8 March,
Mr Straw gave permission for ISSU to proceed with
contracting
40 police
monitors/mentors.488
Those
officers would work directly to Coalition Forces
but would
co‑ordinate closely with CPA(South).489
It was
estimated that the cost for
six months
would be around £3‑4m. In a minute from ISSU to Mr Straw, the
reason
given for
the unilateral approach was that the numbers of international
police advisers
had been
“slow to build”. There was no mention of the US Dyncorps
contract.
543.
DCC Brand had
recommended that some of those officers should be offered to
the
CPA as part
of a Coalition‑wide effort. However, the assessment from ISSU was
that, in
the present
security environment, it would be too great a risk to deploy
FCO‑contracted
British
personnel to police station monitoring outside the UK
AOR.
544.
The minutes of
the working level ‘Security Sector Reform Group’ of 22
April
mentioned
US plans to deploy Dyncorps contractors to MND(SE) but stated that
“it is
still
unclear as to the exact deployment dates and
numbers”.490
They also
referred to
finalising
the role for the UK contractors and efforts to ensure they
“complement, not
compete”
with the Dyncorps contractors.
545.
ACC Read told
the Inquiry that “it was made quite clear” that the
Dyncorps
contractors
would not answer to him and that “co‑ordinating these resources
and
agreeing a
common approach to police reform including the style of policing we
wanted
to
introduce was going to be an issue”.491
546.
The separate
UK contract for 40 police monitors/mentors was let to
ArmorGroup492
for £5m for
six months, with the intention of deploying them in early
June.493
However,
in
light of a
further decline in security and the assessment that the type of
monitoring they
would do
would be “of little value until the Iraqi police [in MND(SE)] have
undergone
more
specialist skills training”, the deployment was put on hold by the
FCO until
September
2004.
547.
On 26 April,
Mr Rycroft wrote to Mr Straw’s Private Secretary, copying
his letter
to DFID,
the MOD, the Cabinet Office and UK officials in Iraq and the US
(see Section
6.2).494
He reported
that Mr Blair thought improvements to existing activities must
be
made,
including on:
“(a)
Iraqiisation. We must do whatever it takes to get the ICDC and
Iraqi police in
shape
…”
488
Minute Owen
to ISSU [junior official], 8 March 2004, ‘Iraq: Contracting of
Police Monitors’.
489
Minute ISSU
[junior official] to Buck and PS/Foreign Secretary [FCO], 3 March
2004, ‘Iraq – Contracting
of Police
Monitors’.
490
Minutes
ISSU, 23 April 2004, ‘Security Sector Reform Meeting – Thursday 22
April 2004’.
491
Statement,
23 June 2010, page 15.
492
ArmorGroup
is a UK‑based private security contractor.
493
Minute ISSU
[junior official] to PS/Foreign Secretary, 11 June 2004, ‘Iraq –
Deployment of Police
Monitors’.
494
Letter
Rycroft to Owen, 26 April 2004, ‘Iraq: 15 Reports for the Prime
Minister’.
174