15.1 | Civilian
personnel
your
Ministers of the need to continue providing the CPA with the
specialist help it
needs”.
Sir Michael observed that Ms Hewitt had already made clear her
support.
158.
Ambassador
Olsen resigned as Head of CPA(South) on 28 July.102
159.
His successor,
Sir Hilary Synnott, arrived in Basra on 30
July.103
160.
Sir Hilary
told the Inquiry what he found on arrival:
“A pretty
dysfunctional team of eight to ten different nationalities, very,
very few
British,
three Foreign Office officials, one permanent DFID official and a
lack of focus
and a lack
of capability … The phones didn’t work, there were no mobile
phones
at that
time and nobody had thought to provide me with any form of
computer.” 104
161.
The decision
to appoint Sir Hilary as Head of CPA(South) and his experience
on
arrival in
Basra are addressed in more detail in Section 10.1.
162.
Shortly before
Sir Hilary Synnott’s arrival in Basra, the CPA produced a
‘Vision for
Iraq’,
supported by a detailed implementation plan (see Section
10.1).105
163.
In his memoir,
Sir Hilary wrote:
“The
trouble was it [the ‘Vision for Iraq’] did not amount to an
operational plan of
action …
There were no indications about how in practice they would be
achieved:
no details
of funding, of personnel involved, of support systems or of
timing.” 106
164.
On 7 August,
officials informed the AHMGIR that the IPU was debriefing the
first
wave of UK
secondees to the CPA returning from Iraq.107
Operational
lessons would be
put to
Ministers in September.
165.
Separately,
the Cabinet Office Corporate Development Group (CDG)
began
assessing
the benefits of CPA secondments to staff and departments. The aim
was
to report
to Ministers in November, drawing on responses to a questionnaire
to be put
to secondees
within a month of their return from Iraq.108
166.
The outcome of
both exercises is described later in this Section.
102
Iraq
Report, 1 August
2003, Southern
Iraq Administrator leaves post.
103
Synnott
H. Bad Days in
Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq. I B
Tauris & Co
Ltd.,
2008.
104
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, page 9.
105
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing Office,
2009;
Bremer LP III & McConnell M. My Year in
Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. Threshold,
2006.
106
Synnott
H. Bad Days
in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq. I B
Tauris & Co
Ltd.,
2008.
107 Annotated
Agenda, 7 August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
108
Minute Dodd
to Barker, 4 August 2003, ‘Iraq: feedback from
secondees’.
271