The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
825.
Concern about
the safety of LE staff emerged in September 2003.525
826.
On 18
September, during a visit to Baghdad, Mr Benn was told by UK
secondees
to the CPA
that “there was increased nervousness amongst Iraqi staff about
doing their
jobs. Daily
lives were difficult and the UN bombing [on 19 August 2003] had
increased
827.
Mr Dinham
told the Inquiry that, during 2006 and 2007, access to a number
of
infrastructure
projects was so difficult that “we had to arrange to work through
local
contractors
… taking videos, taking digital images, contacting us by email,
meeting
them in
safe locations so we could actually supervise at one
remove”.527
828.
Sir Suma
Chakrabarti paid tribute to the bravery of local
staff:
“Some quite
innovative project management techniques had to be applied when
staff
could not
get out of the Consul General’s office to go and monitor progress
on some
of the
infrastructure programmes. I have to say something about the
courage of our
Iraqi
staff, actually, in helping with a lot of that until they also
faced threats as well
and then we
had to stop employing them.” 528
829.
On 20 April
2006, Mr Robin Lamb, British Consul General in Basra, reported
that
law and
order in Basra had deteriorated over the preceding few weeks and
that:
“Most of
our critical local staff (ie those who interpret or conduct
external business
for us) now
consider it too dangerous to come into work …
“We are
taking steps to manage LE staff’s perceptions. We judge that the
risk to
them is
probably lower than they believe, and we have designed ways of
working
to lower
their exposure (flexible patterns, shifts, rotations). But it is
hard to argue
with the
facts on the ground. Murders have spiked in the last three weeks
and there
is evidence
that interpreters associated with MND(SE) and the wider Coalition
have
been
targeted.
…
“We judge
that local staff will feel safe to return to work when the Council
boycott
[see
Section 9.4] is lifted … Local staff tell us that they think it
will be easier for them
once
relations with the Council are restored …
“DFID see
their situation slightly differently … Although two of DFID’s local
partners
have been
threatened, the risks to them are not as great as to our permanent
local
525
Minute
[DFID junior official] to Drummond, 25 September 2003, ‘Hilary
Benn’s Meeting with
UK Secondees
to CPA‑HQ in Baghdad, 18 September’.
526
Minute
[DFID junior official] to Drummond, 25 September 2003, ‘Hilary
Benn’s Meeting with
UK Secondees
to CPA‑HQ in Baghdad, 18 September’.
527
Public
hearing, 17 December 2009, page 43.
528
Public
hearing, 22 January 2010, pages 33‑34.
384