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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’.
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