12.2 |
Conclusions: Security Sector Reform
53.
Following a
review, Combined Joint Taskforce‑7 (CJTF‑7)31
issued an
Order on
27 October
entitled ‘Acceleration of the Iraqi Police Services’ which
envisaged enhanced
support
from CJTF‑7 for enlarged and accelerated police training
programmes. It had
been
developed without consultation with the UK.
54.
Sir Hilary
Synnott reported that the Order had:
“ …
considerable implications for military resources to be devoted to
police training;
for our
current plans, including the recently inaugurated Basra Regional
Police
Academy;
and for the significant Danish effort at present and in future. We
had no
warning of
this from CPA Baghdad (beyond a slight reference to such a
possibility),
no
subsequent information from them and no
consultation.”32
55.
On 6 November,
the AHMGIR was told that the new approach included
“accelerating
recruitment,
training and deployment of Iraqi security forces”.33
The ICDC
was set to
increase by
April 2004 and the target for 70,000 police should be reached by
August
2004 rather
than March 2005. The training of the Iraqi Army would be slowed,
but the
Army would
“now be allowed to undertake internal as well as external security
tasks”.
56.
Although the
US military had produced plans for accelerating training, they had
not
addressed
DCC White’s concerns about the quality of that
training.
57.
Former DCC
Brand told the Inquiry:
“Trying to
persuade my military colleagues at two‑star and three‑star level
that this
was a
long‑term investment of restructuring the police seemed to work
against their
sort of
short‑term mission goals, and I very vividly remember the
presentation that
was done to
the Commanding General which was entitled ‘30,000 in 30 Days’
…
I had to
say ‘Okay, in that case then, why don’t you give me the military to
train?
I have
read a few war books, I have seen a few war films, it can’t be as
difficult as
that, or is
that as ridiculous as what you are suggesting, which is we recruit
30,000 in
30 days,
call them police, label them police, give them weapons and say ‘You
are
now in the
police’ but actually have no capability to do the things that
policemen
58.
In November,
Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan, the lead on international affairs
for
the
Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), told Mr Straw
that police reform in Iraq
still
lacked vision and that the UK contribution was
insufficient.
59.
At about the
same time, Mr Jim Daniel, a senior ex‑Home Office adviser sent
to
Iraq to
help the CPA generate a policing strategy, decided to resign. The
combination of
31
CJTF‑7, the
Coalition HQ in Iraq, was a small command. It was led by Lieutenant
General Ricardo
Sanchez.
32
Telegram
110 FCO London [on behalf of CPA Basra] to UKRep Iraq, 31 October
2003, ‘Police Training
in South
Iraq’.
33
Annotated
Agenda Cabinet Office, 6 November 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq
Rehabilitation.
34
Public
hearing, 29 June 2010, pages 24‑25.
425