The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“So in many
ways it was a certain sort of person who would have enjoyed his
time or
her time in
Basra. I think there were those who did. I think I would have liked
it if the
Foreign
Office could have come up with another Arabist.
…
“As I said,
I think we could have had more impact in terms of personnel if we
had
people who
were a bit more specialist in the region and who spoke Arabic, and
if
we could
have got people to come at the time when I most needed
them.”
650.
Mr Nigel
Heywood, Consul General in Basra from April 2008 to August 2009,
told
the Inquiry
that he had one UK‑based Arabic‑speaking slot on his staff and a
locally
engaged
political adviser who acted as interpreter.424
Mr Heywood
suggested that there
was a
competitive advantage to be gained from having Arabists in an
environment like
Iraq, where
other countries did not have any on their staff.
651.
Mr MacKiggan,
Head of the Basra PRT from 2008 to 2009, did not speak
Arabic,
and worked
through interpreters.425
He told the
Inquiry that it was necessary to prioritise
skills and
that it was difficult to find the person who had all the skills you
were looking
for in
an environment like Iraq.
652.
Shortage of
Arabic language skills was also a consistent theme among
participants
at the
Inquiry civilian outreach event.
653.
The Inquiry
has seen no evidence that any Kurdish speakers were
deployed,
or available
to be deployed, by either the FCO or the MOD between 2003 and
2009.
654.
In March 2002,
FCO Research Analysts hosted a discussion on Middle
Eastern
and Islamic
studies in the UK involving representatives of industry and the
academic
community.426
The event
raised concerns about the shortage of Arabic speakers
in
a range of
institutions, including the FCO, and the decline in the teaching of
Middle
Eastern
studies and languages in the UK. Some Middle Eastern languages,
including
Kurdish,
were not being taught at all in the UK. Participants warned that,
when money
was tight,
language teaching was often the first area to suffer.
655.
In 2007, the
FCO closed its Language Centre.427
The British
Academy’s 2013
report on
languages in UK diplomacy and security described the closure as
“the low
point of
what had been a gradual decline in language skills amongst
diplomats”.
The decline
had been particularly marked among languages that were difficult to
learn,
including
Arabic.
424
Public
hearing, 7 January 2010, page 55.
425
Public
hearing, 7 January 2010, page 56.
426
The Middle
East Quarterly, Volume 10,
Number 2, Spring 2003, Middle
Eastern Studies in the United
Kingdom.
427
British
Academy, Lost for
Words: The Need for Languages in UK Diplomacy and
Security,
November
2013.
356