The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
77.
Sir Nicholas
Macpherson told the Inquiry:
“I don’t
think at a macro level this intervention [Iraq] has had a
significant effect
on spending
elsewhere … I think the peak year of spending was 2003/04,
which
was about
£1.6bn. When you [the Government] are spending £500bn, £1.6bn
is
significant
and it bears a lot of attention and focus, but it is not going to
divert fiscal
policy in a
massive sense.”63
78.
Mr Brown
told the Inquiry:
“I think we
managed to meet the requirements of Iraq and Afghanistan
without
having to
cut other services …
“… it did
make my life more difficult, because we had to find £17bn over a
period of
time, but
we thought and believed that these [costs] were manageable, given
the
priority
that we attached to doing the things that we did.”64
79.
The £17bn
referred to by Mr Brown represented the NACMO in Iraq
and
Afghanistan.
80.
Mr Boateng
told the Inquiry that the Treasury’s analyses of the impact of war
on
the UK’s
public finances were not conducted with the intention of
“second‑guessing”
Ministers,
but to enable the Treasury to contribute to planning and policy
discussions.65
81.
The Treasury
provided a more detailed analysis on the potential impact
of
intervention
in Iraq on UK public finances for Mr Brown on 22
October.
82.
Section 6.3
describes the increasing concern within the MOD over possible
delays
in
procuring and delivering UORs for operations against Iraq arising
from the decision in
July not to
engage the Treasury in military contingency planning.
83.
On 19
September, in the context of discussions within the MOD on how to
secure
funding for
a number of critical UORs relating to potential UK Special Forces
operations
in Iraq,
the Private Office of Sir Kevin Tebbit, MOD Permanent Under
Secretary, advised
that
Sir Kevin believed that Mr Hoon should discuss the issue
of funding for UORs
with
Mr Brown “as soon as possible”, which would be at their
meeting scheduled for
63
Public
hearing, 22 January 2010, page 9.
64
Public
hearing, 5 March 2010, pages 103–105.
65
Public
hearing, 14 July 2010, page 22.
66
Minute
APS/PUS [MOD] to Sec(HSF)2, 19 September 2002, ‘Op ROW: SF
Urgent Operational
Requirements
(UORs)’.
458