The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
405.
Mr Asquith
informed Sir Michael Jay that FCO officials were looking
again
at the
possibility of a private sector provider for the air bridge service
and exploring
the
possibility of using a proposed US military air bridge between the
Basra Palace site
and
Kuwait.
406.
On 20 April,
FCO and DFID officials recommended the return of a small
number
of staff
pending a further review in another two weeks.282
Their
advice drew on the views
of
Mr Robin Lamb, Mr Tansley’s successor as Consul General,
who recommended a
two‑stage
return, reflecting a reduction in indirect fire over the previous
weeks, but also
the
continuing constraints on staff mobility and their ability to work
effectively.283
407.
Sir Michael
Jay approved the phased return to normal staffing in Basra on 15
May,
after a
brief delay while officials considered the implications of the
shooting down of a
UK military
helicopter in Basra on 6 May (see Section 9.5).284
Sir Michael
instructed that:
“… the
security situation needs to be kept under constant and active
review (as
I know it
is), and we should be ready to draw down again if the security
situation
deteriorates
to the extent that staff are unable to carry out their duties, or
if we judge
the risk
simply too great for them to stay.”
408.
DFID officials
recommended to Mr Benn that DFID also return to full staffing,
but
explained
that numbers would not rise substantially because DFID’s programme
in the
South was
“less labour‑intensive” than six months earlier.285
They stated
that:
“Numbers
will be kept at the current level of eight with an occasional rise
to 10 or
11 to
account for overlap in rotations. This would mean a breakdown of
two out of
three DFID
staff and five out of the nine consultants at the [Basra] Palace
with a
maximum of
three DFID staff and seven consultants during handover periods
…
Visitors
would be additional to those numbers. Essential visits only will go
ahead,
by no
more than two visitors and for a maximum of four days at a
time.”
409.
Many of the
problems the UK had encountered with the deployment of
civilian
personnel
since 2003 resurfaced with the opening of the UK‑led Basra PRT
in
May 2006.
Those included:
•
rapid
turnover of staff;
•
civil/military
co‑operation; and
•
departmental
co‑ordination.
282
Minute IPU
[junior official] to PS [FCO], 20 April 2006, ‘Basra: Security
Situation’; Minute MENAD
[junior official]
to PS/Secretary of State [DFID], 21 April 2006, ‘Basra Security and
Staffing’.
283
Letter Lamb
to IPU [junior official], 20 April 2006, ‘Basra: Security and
Drawdown’.
284
Manuscript
comment Jay, 16 May 2006, on Minute Iraq Policy Unit [junior
official] to PS/PUS [FCO],
15 May
2006, ‘Basra: Security Situation’.
285
Minute
MENAD [junior official] to Private Secretary [DFID], 17 May 2006,
‘Iraq: Staff Security and
Staffing
Levels in Basra’.
314