The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Embassy
Office. UK and US LE staff were regularly intimidated in Baghdad
and Basra.
One US LE
member of staff had been murdered in Basra on 4 June.
Multi‑National
Force –
Iraq (MNF‑I) interpreters had also been killed.
436.
Mr Asquith
reported that Mr Lamb had advised LE staff not to come to
work
until
further notice, although local labourers and support staff working
for contractors
on the
premises had continued to come in. A number of steps were under
consideration
to improve
LE staff security. The attack was not judged to have changed the
security
conditions
for UK‑based civilians and it was not, therefore, proposed to draw
down
UK
staff.
437.
DFID officials
put further recommendations to Mr Benn on 23 June, drawing
on
advice from
DFID Basra.296
Pending
agreement from the FCO, which was expected
imminently,
officials recommended that:
•
at his own
request, the DFID LE staff member in Basra should leave the
country
as soon as
possible on a two‑month development attachment;
•
the locally
contracted administrative assistant for power projects should
be
relocated
to Basra Airport; and
•
two other
locally contracted staff should work from home for two
months.
438.
On 14 July,
DFID officials explained to Mr Benn that DFID and the FCO
had
adopted
different approaches:
“FCO
offered their office‑based staff three months’ salary if they
wanted to leave.
We believe
most have now accepted this offer. FCO is now deciding if and how
to fill
these
positions with either UK or third country nationals … Although far
from ideal,
this has so
far had no significant impact on DFID’s work.
…
“We suggest
that, where staff can work remotely (on project sites, at home,
in
town), we
should continue to employ them on the same basis as before and that
we
maintain
our position on this as originally planned despite it differing
from the FCO
approach.
Our circumstances are different. FCO local staff are needed on a
daily
basis at
the [Basra] Palace. Most of our local staff are not and the two
administrative
staff who
were, have already resigned. All of our local staff know that they
have the
option to
work flexibly, to take time off if they feel threatened and to
leave if they feel
it is too
dangerous.” 297
296
Minute
[DFID junior official] to PS/Secretary of State [DFID], 23 June
2006, ‘Iraq Security Update:
Basra and
Baghdad’.
297
Minute
MENAD [junior official] to PS/Secretary of State [DFID], 14 July
2006, ‘Information Note:
Security
Update – Iraq’.
320