15.1 | Civilian
personnel
643.
In his
valedictory as Head of the IPU in May 2005, Mr Crompton
criticised the
FCO’s
“inability (or unwillingness)” to redeploy senior staff at short
notice:
“In summer
2003 we carried short gaps in both Baghdad and Basra at critical
times,
absences
which damaged our reputation around Whitehall … If the FCO
aspires
to be the
lead on post‑conflict issues, it needs to be willing to redeploy
senior staff
immediately
from other positions, leaving gaps if necessary.” 420
644.
Mr Tinline,
who served in Basra from 2007 to 2008, told the Inquiry that
recruitment
was less of
a concern than it might have been because of the security
situation:
“… if the
security constraints had been less, I think a lot of these things
would
have been
far bigger issues. Because the security constraints were such, we
didn’t
actually
need that much staff. We couldn’t actually do that much. So the
sort of lost
opportunity
was in fact minimal.” 421
645.
Between 2003
and 2009, UK Ministers and officials expressed concern about
a
shortage of
UK Arabic speakers and of expertise in a number of fields
associated with
reconstruction
and stabilisation.
646.
The
Government’s response to the shortage of reconstruction and
stabilisation
expertise
is addressed in Section 10.3, which considers the creation of the
Post‑Conflict
Reconstruction
Unit and its successor, the Stabilisation Unit.
647.
Several
witnesses to the Inquiry commented on the shortage of Arabic
speakers
deployed to
Iraq throughout the period covered by the Inquiry.
648.
Sir Mark
Lyall‑Grant, FCO Political Director from February 2007 to October
2009,
who was not
an Arabic speaker, explained that he had three experts on the
Middle East
working for
him who were Arabic speakers: Mr McDonald, Dr Jenkins and
Mr Prentice.422
649.
Mr Tansley,
Consul General in Basra from October 2005 to April 2006, told
the
Inquiry
that he was the only Arabic speaker at the British Embassy Office
Basra during
his time
there.423
He
explained that, not only was living in Basra more restrictive than
in
Baghdad,
but there was also:
“… a view,
in purely career terms that the high profile work … was being done
up in
Baghdad,
liaising with ministers, most of whom spoke English and were all
western
educated
and quite smooth, suave and sophisticated, compared with the
politicians
we had to
deal with down in Basra.
420
Minute
Crompton to Sawers, 4 May 2005, ‘Iraq: Reflections’.
421
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, page 89.
422
Public
hearing, 20 January 2010, page 5.
423
Private
hearing, 22 June 2010, pages 70‑72.
355