15.1 | Civilian
personnel
65.
The Inquiry
estimates that, on the eve of the invasion, the UK had between 10
and
16 non‑MOD
civilians ready to deploy to Iraq:
•
two DFID
humanitarian experts to advise 1 (UK) Div;36
•
four
secondees to ORHA (a fifth remained in ORHA’s Pentagon office; two
other
UK
secondees were military officers),37
with five
or six more “in the pipeline”;38
and
•
a team of
four to reopen the British Embassy Baghdad.39
66.
In late March,
the MOD deployed 156 civilians40
to theatre in
support of Op TELIC.41
67.
Before the
invasion, DFID also deployed a number of staff to locations outside
Iraq:
•
Four DFID
staff were deployed to Kuwait, Jordan and Iran “to monitor
and
assess
humanitarian needs and to liaise with UN agencies and NGOs”,
with
an undertaking
to increase numbers “as circumstances dictate”.
•
DFID
seconded specialists to the World Food Programme (WFP) and
the
UN Office
for the Co‑ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and
was
“considering
requests” from other parts of the UN system.42
68.
By 7 April,
DFID had also seconded a Liaison Officer and a Logistics Officer to
the
UN’s HIC in
Larnaca, an Air Movement Officer to the WFP’s Operations Centre,
and
an Air
Co‑ordinator to the UNJLC in Larnaca.43
69.
DFID deployed
a second Air Movement Officer to the WFP Operations
Centre
70.
UK policy
towards ORHA is addressed in detail in Sections 6.5 and 10.1.
This
Section
considers the nature and scale of the UK contribution to the ORHA
workforce.
36
Minute Iraq
Planning Unit [junior official] to PS [FCO], 24 March 2003, ‘HMG
Humanitarian Planning’
attaching
Paper Iraq Planning Unit, ‘HMG Humanitarian Planning’.
37
Telegram
347 Washington to FCO London, 14 March 2003, ‘Iraq Day After: ORHA
Deploys To Kuwait’.
38
Paper Iraq
Planning Unit, 28 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Office for Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance
(ORHA)’.
39
Minute
Collecott to Private Secretary [FCO], 21 March 2003, ‘A British
Embassy in Baghdad’.
40
The figure
of 156, quoted by Mr Flaherty on 31 March 2003, is
significantly lower than the 327 civilians
deployed in
Iraq in the calendar month of March 2003 according to the table
submitted to the Inquiry by
the MOD in
May 2013 (see Table 7).
41
Minute
Flaherty to PS/PUS [MOD], 31 March 2003, ‘Deployed Civilians in
Support of OP TELIC’.
42
Minute Iraq
Planning Unit [junior official] to PS [FCO], 24 March 2003, ‘HMG
Humanitarian Planning’
attaching
Paper Iraq Planning Unit, ‘HMG Humanitarian Planning’.
43
Report
DFID, 7 April 2003, ‘Iraq Humanitarian Situation Update: No 12
(internal)’.
44
Report
DFID, 7 May 2003, ‘Iraq Humanitarian Situation Update: No 28
(internal)’.
255