15.1 | Civilian
personnel
109.
The AHMGIR was
also informed that 61 UK officials had been seconded to
ORHA,
five of
them in Basra. Officials provided very basic information on the
functions of 35 of
the 61,
explaining: “Some secondees have yet to be allocated specific
roles.”
110.
Section 10.1
describes ORHA’s absorption into the Coalition Provisional
Authority
(CPA)
during May 2003.
111.
Mr Blair
visited Basra and Umm Qasr on 29 May. DFID and the FCO
provided
separate
briefings for the visit.
112.
DFID advised
that it had stepped up its “staff support” for ORHA in Baghdad
and
Basra and
was looking at additional areas to support.72
113.
The FCO
advised that the UK now had 61 secondees in ORHA (including
in
Basra),
most of whom were working with Iraqi ministries.73
In Basra,
the UK had
provided a
Deputy to Mr Ole Olsen, the Danish Head of ORHA(South), and 10
other
secondees,
and planned to send more.
114.
On 1 June, the
Deputy to Ambassador Olsen reported that ORHA(South)
had
21 staff
(eight UK civilians, five UK military officers, five Danish
civilians, two US military
officers
and one Japanese civilian). Additional staff were arriving “in
trickles” but were
mostly
military officers and had been directed to ORHA(South) by 1 (UK)
Div and
Maj Gen Cross.
Those officers were useful as “stopgaps”, but ORHA(Baghdad)
needed
to provide
expert staff.74
115.
On 3 June,
Mr Blair called for Whitehall to return to a “war footing” in
Iraq to
avoid
losing the peace (see Section 9.1).75
He stated
that the CPA lacked “grip and
organisation”
rather than money or numbers of staff. The UK needed to “beef up”
its
involvement
and there needed to be “a strong civilian team in the South. In
general,
there
needed to be a much stronger civilian grip”.
116.
After the
meeting, Baroness Amos, the International Development
Secretary,
told
Mr Hilary Benn, Minister of State for International
Development, and Mr Chakrabarti
that “the
Prime Minister’s thinking seemed to be that the UK would put in the
people;
72
Letter
Bewes to Cannon, [undated], ‘Iraq – Humanitarian
Update’.
73
Letter
Sinclair to Cannon, 27 May 2003, ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to
Iraq’.
74
Minute ORHA
South [junior official] to Chilcott, 1 June 2003, ‘ORHA South –
First Impressions’.
75
Minute
Cannon to McDonald, 3 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s Meeting, 3
June’.
76
Minute DFID
[junior official] to DFID [junior official], 3 June 2003, ‘PM Iraq
meeting’.
263