15.1 | Civilian
personnel
306.
Mr Parham
reported that, in Baghdad, all staff were accommodated
under
hard cover,
very few road journeys were authorised beyond Baghdad and there
was
heightened
concern about the road between Baghdad Airport and the Green
Zone.
There was
no operational alternative to using the airport road and staff
would continue to
use it
while mitigating risks as far as possible.
307.
Security in
Basra had deteriorated over the previous two months. Staff
were
accommodated
in soft‑skinned CPA trailers, which were being sandbagged to
give
extra blast
protection. Progress had been very slow, but was now being
expedited. From
30 June,
all staff at the British Embassy Office Basra would be under hard
cover.
308.
Mr Parham
explained that the drawdown of CPA(South) staff would begin in
early
June as
transition approached and that DFID was considering whether to
bring forward
the
departure of experts performing non‑essential tasks.
309.
Mr Parham
also reported on the security of UK staff in other
provinces:
•
In
Nasiriyah, Mr Rory Stewart, Deputy Governorate Co‑ordinator,
had already
been
evacuated with the Co‑ordinator and the CRG close protection team
on
17 May
after the CPA compound had come under sustained attack.
Mr Parham
explained
that it would not make sense for civilian staff to return to
the
CPA office.
Instead, a core staff might operate from the Italian military
base
“as security
allows”.
•
Mr Nixon
and the Basra Security Manager would visit Samawah, the
capital
of Muthanna
province, on 19 May to assess whether the Deputy
Governorate
Co‑ordinator,
the only UK member of the GT, should remain there.
•
The GT for
Wasit province, headed by Mr Mark Etherington, was confined
to
the city of
Kut, where US troops were securing the CPA compound.
Mr Parham
advised
that the UK would pull out its staff if US troops
withdrew.
•
The GT in
Kirkuk was “securely established in a well‑protected
compound”.
•
In Erbil,
Dr Liane Saunders, CPA Regional Co‑ordinator, was based in
an
isolated
compound that was “very secure and well‑guarded”. She was
able
to operate
over a wide area.
310.
On 24 May, two
UK civilians, an adviser to the Iraqi Oil Ministry employed by
the
FCO and a
CRG employee, were killed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED)
just
outside the
Green Zone in Baghdad.213
311.
An initial ban
on staff movements outside the Green Zone introduced after
the
attack was
lifted on 26 May.
312.
ISOG
instructed the FCO, MOD and DFID to review staff deployments, and
the
FCO and MOD
to speed up the delivery of Electronic Counter‑Measures
(ECMs)
213
Letter
Overseas and Defence Secretariat [junior official] to Buck, 26 May
2004, ‘Iraq: Senior Officials
Group’.
297