The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
582.
The FCO wrote
to No.10 on 5 November, providing an update on its efforts
to
secure
funding for the Iraqi Media Network.352
The FCO had
undertaken a “quick audit”
of the UK
Government’s support for the Iraqi media and had, with Treasury
colleagues,
pressed
other departments to do more. Funds available from FCO programme
budgets,
the British
Council and possibly the World Service totalled between £1.5m and
£2m.
583.
In his
statement to the Inquiry, Mr John Buck, FCO Director Iraq from
September
2003 to
July 2004, wrote:
“… I
remember spending a significant amount of time … trying to find
several
hundred
thousand pounds to finance the purchase of a transmitter in
southern Iraq
for the
Iraq Media Network … I tried the FCO finance people and was told
that
purchase of
a transmitter wasn’t really a proper call on FCO funds and that
this
should come
from the Treasury’s Reserve. I went to the Treasury and was told
that
this should
really come out of the FCO’s existing allocation, but perhaps it
was worth
trying
DFID. I had a meeting with DFID, who took the view that they didn’t
really do
media. I
then went back to the FCO who did then find the
money.”353
584.
The Inquiry
asked Mr Buck why, for an initiative for which Mr Blair
had expressed
his
support, and in a situation where Mr Straw was chairing the
AHMGIR, the FCO had
not been
able to secure a relatively small amount of funding from the
Treasury, and why
the FCO had
not tried to go “back up the chain” to Mr Straw or
Mr Blair when funding
585.
In response,
Mr Buck highlighted the (in his view) favourable treatment
enjoyed
by the
Treasury due to “broader politics within the
Government”.
586.
Two further
FCO bids to the Reserve during the CPA period, for £2m and
£9.4m
to improve
security for staff seconded to the CPA, were agreed in full on 8
December
2003355
and 30
January 2004 respectively.356
587.
In May 2005,
in the context of work to develop a new GCPP Iraq strategy
for
2005/06, a
DFID official involved in managing the GCPP Iraq strategy assessed
the
performance
of that strategy in the previous year:
“There was
and is still no medium term [UK] roadmap … In this environment, it
is not
surprising
that … the GCPP was used according to the priorities of the day,
despite
ministerial
endorsement of its medium‑term strategy. GCPP programming
therefore
lurched in
tandem with evolving Iraqi and HMG priorities …
352
Letter FCO
[junior official] to Rycroft, 5 November 2003, ‘Enhancing the Iraq
Media Network’.
353
Statement,
26 July 2010, page 2.
354
Public
hearing, 31 January 2011, pages 53‑55.
355
Letter
Boateng to Straw, 8 December 2003, ‘Iraq Reserve
Claim’.
356
Letter
Boateng to Straw, 30 January 2004, ‘Iraq Reserve
Claim’.
540