15.1 | Civilian
personnel
for
promoting UK exports.15
DFID had
also agreed formally to second an official to
ORHA’s
humanitarian assistance division.
26.
On 17 March,
an official in the Cabinet Office Overseas and Defence
Secretariat
(OD Sec)
informed Sir David Manning, Mr Blair’s Foreign Policy
Adviser and Head of
OD Sec,
that Maj Gen Cross had asked whether a suitable UK
official was available
to improve
ORHA’s capacity to handle Arabic‑language media.16
27.
Concerns about
the adequacy of the UK contribution to ORHA began to grow
soon
after the
start of the invasion and are addressed later in this
Section.
28.
On 3 February,
DFID officials recommended to Ms Short that DFID second six
civil/
military
humanitarian advisers to the UK military and ORHA, in order “to
take further
forward our
objective of refining the military planning options to ensure the
humanitarian
consequences
of any conflict in Iraq are fully addressed”.17
29.
The Inquiry
has not seen Ms Short’s response to the advice, but DFID did
second
a number
of staff over the following weeks.
30.
On 7 March,
DFID informed Mr Blair that, in addition to the DFID presence
in ORHA,
there was
now a DFID staff presence in the 1st (UK) Armoured Division (1 (UK)
Div) in
Kuwait,
with further deployments to the region and UN agencies
imminent.18
31.
DFID officials
sent Ms Short an outline ‘Humanitarian Strategy and
Immediate
Assistance
Plan’ for Iraq on 12 March (see Section 6.5).19
The single
page describing
DFID’s
“Operational Plan” explained that: “In view of DFID’s limited
resources, we will
retain
maximum
flexibility to respond to changing scenarios and
needs”.
Actions
planned or
under way included:
•
“Information
Management”. Staff
from the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs
Department
Operations Team (CHAD OT) would be deployed to Kuwait
and
Jordan to
collate, analyse and disseminate field information. DFID was
also
evaluating
the need to send staff to Turkey, Iran and Cyprus, and would
retain
a limited
capacity to deploy assessment teams to localised crisis
points.
•
“Direct
Support to the UN”. DFID was seconding specialists to support
the
co‑ordination
and information activities of the UN’s Humanitarian
Assistance
Centre
(HIC) and Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC).
15
Telegram
347 Washington to FCO London, 14 March 2003, ‘Iraq Day After: ORHA
Deploys To Kuwait’.
16
Minute Dodd
to Manning, 17 March 2003, ‘Ad Hoc Group on Iraq’.
17
Minute
Conflict & Humanitarian Affairs Department [junior official] to
PS/Secretary of State [DFID],
3 February
2003, ‘Iraq: Refining the Military Options’.
18
Letter
Warren to Rycroft, 7 March 2003, [untitled] attaching Paper DFID,
[undated], ‘DFID Planning
on Iraq’.
19
Paper
Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department, 12 March 2003, ‘Iraq:
Humanitarian Strategy and
Immediate
Assistance Plan: Information Note’.
249