The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
285.
On funding,
Ms Short agreed that if DFID was involved in humanitarian work
only,
it would
draw on its Contingency Reserve. In the event that a “wider DFID
role” was
possible,
“should we [DFID] be asked by No.10 or others how much funding DFID
would
need, we
should mention an initial
sum of £100
million”.
286.
Ms Short
wrote to Mr Blair on the same day:
“You must …
be aware that without resources larger than my whole
Contingency
Reserve –
just under £100m … it would be impossible for DFID to take a
leading
role in
humanitarian delivery in the South–East about which we
spoke.”172
Copies of
Ms Short’s letter were sent to Mr Brown, Mr Straw
and Mr Hoon.
287.
On 6 March,
Mr Blair chaired a meeting on post‑conflict issues with
Mr Brown,
Mr Hoon,
Ms Short, Baroness Symons, Sir Michael Jay and “other
officials”.173
The meeting
is described in detail in Section 6.5.
288.
Mr Brown
received a number of papers from Treasury officials before the
meeting.
Mr Dodds’
advice on military operations in the post‑conflict period is
described earlier
in this
Section.
289.
A Treasury
official provided Mr Brown with a draft “DFID paper rewritten
by the
Treasury”
on humanitarian relief and reconstruction costs.174
The draft
paper stated
that it was
a “first attempt at charting the likely costs of the first three
years of the Iraqi
reconstruction”.
It adopted a different methodology from the draft DFID paper
submitted
to
Ms Short on 31 January, but reached broadly similar
conclusions.
290.
The draft
paper stated that cost estimates would remain “very rough” until
the
IFIs had
completed a full needs assessment. However, an analysis of
international
precedents
indicated that:
•
In the
first year after a conflict, humanitarian costs could be
between
US$2bn and
US$12bn, depending on the scale of the humanitarian crisis
and
the extent
to which oil exports were disrupted (the estimates assumed that
the
OFF
programme would continue).
•
In the
second and third years after a conflict, total reconstruction costs
(before
Iraq’s oil
revenues were taken into account) could be between US$2bn
and
US$15bn per
year. The upper limit was not based on an analysis of
international
precedents,
but reflected the potential for “political pressure to spend as
much
as the OFF
[programme] does now (if not more)”.
172
Letter
Short to Blair, 5 March 2003, ‘Post Conflict Iraq: UN and US
Roles’.
173
Letter
Cannon to Owen, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Post‑Conflict
Issues’.
174
Email Dodds
to Private Office [Treasury], 4 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Ministerial
Meeting on Thursday Morning’
attaching
Paper DFID, March 2003, ‘Draft: Iraq Relief and Reconstruction
Costs: an Overview’.
490