15.1 | Civilian
personnel
76.
Sir David
commented: “We need to decide if we want a place. Do
we?” 49
He
asked
Mr Matthew
Rycroft, Mr Blair’s Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to
discuss the issue
with the
FCO.
77.
UK support for
ORHA was the focus of the first meeting of the Ad Hoc
Ministerial
Group on
Iraq Rehabilitation (AHMGIR), chaired by Mr Straw, on 10 April
(see
78.
Mr Straw
visited ORHA in Kuwait on 14 April.51
During the
visit, Maj Gen Cross
handed
Mr Straw a copy of his ‘Must‑Could‑Should’ paper (see Section
10.1). The
paper,
which was sent to the MOD and the IPU on 15 April, identified ORHA
posts that
UK secondees
must fill, should fill or could fill “to best help ORHA achieve
success”.52
79.
Maj Gen Cross
advised that, if all the recommendations were accepted, the
number
of UK staff
would rise from 19 to “about 100” within an ORHA total of 1,500
(including
force
protection and support staff).
80.
On 15 April,
Mr Straw recommended to Mr Blair:
“… a step
change in the resources and personnel we offer … We are
working
urgently to
establish where we can best make a contribution and how this
will
be
funded.
“We now
need an immediate effort across government and with the private
sector
to get UK
experts into key Iraqi ministries quickly. Patricia [Hewitt, the
Trade
and
Industry Secretary] is particularly keen that we should appoint
people to the
economic
ministries …”
81.
In his memoir,
Mr Straw wrote:
“I could
not believe the shambles before my eyes. There were around forty
people in
the room,
who, somehow or other, were going to be the nucleus of the
government
of this
large, disputatious and traumatised nation.” 53
82.
On 15 April,
the IPU informed Mr Ricketts that it had requested extra staff
to cover
the “major
surge of work” in managing the secondment of UK officials to ORHA,
and was
trying to
identify funding.54
It
estimated that the first UK secondees would be required
by
early
May.
49
Manuscript
comment Manning, 4 April 2003, on Letter Brenton to Manning, 3
April 2003,
‘Post Conflict Iraq’.
50
Minutes, 10
April 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
51
Statement
Cross, 2009, pages 17‑18.
52
Minute
Cross to MA/DCDS(C), 15 April 2003, ‘ORHA posts UK manning:
must/should/could’.
53
Straw
J. Last Man
Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor.
Macmillan, 2012.
54
Minute
Chatterton Dickson to PS/PUS [FCO], 15 April 2003, ‘Iraq: ORHA:
PUS’s meeting with
Permanent
Secretaries, 16 April’.
257