15.2 |
Conclusions: Civilian personnel
68.
LE staff
played an essential role in the UK effort in Iraq. They became
increasingly
important
as security deteriorated and the mobility of UK personnel became
constrained.
69.
Officials
recognised in 2003 the critical role of LE staff and the personal
risk they
took in
working for the UK Government. The issue came into sharper focus in
Basra
in April
2006, when the British Consul General reported that most LE staff
in the city
considered
it too dangerous to come into work.
70.
On 18 June
2006, an LE member of staff at the British Embassy Office Basra
was
murdered.
His wife, also an LE member of staff, was seriously
injured.
71.
The visibility
of LE staff in the local community made them particularly
vulnerable
to attack.
UK officials in Iraq took steps to manage the risk, including the
introduction
of flexible
shift patterns. DFID local staff in Basra, who were particularly
exposed to the
threat
because of the extent of their work outside the Basra Palace site,
had standing
permission
not to come to work if they felt unsafe.
72.
Only in August
2007, faced with a further deterioration in security and growing
press
interest in
LE staff, did officials try, with some difficulty, to reconcile
FCO, DFID, MOD
and, as the
department responsible for immigration, Home Office views to
establish “a
coherent
cross-Whitehall approach”.25
73.
The design and
implementation of the Locally Engaged Staff Assistance
Scheme,
announced
in Parliament in October 2007, was further hindered by shortcomings
in the
data on LE
staff held by the FCO and the MOD.
74.
The evidence
seen by the Inquiry indicates that the UK did not fail in its duty
of care to
LE staff,
but the Inquiry concludes that the Government should have
recognised sooner that
LE staff
were uniquely exposed to the security threat and vital to the UK
effort in Iraq, and
that this
was an issue requiring a co-ordinated and agreed approach across
departments.
75.
Several
witnesses to the Inquiry commented on the shortage of Arabic
speakers
among
civilians deployed to Iraq throughout the period covered by the
Inquiry.
76.
There was also
a shortage of Arabic speakers available to support the UK
military.
77.
The deployment
of more Arabic speakers would have provided the opportunity
to:
•
increase UK
access to Iraqi institutions and society;
•
build
greater trust between the UK Government and influential Iraqis;
and
•
improve UK
understanding of political and social undercurrents in
Iraq.
25
Minute IPU
[junior official] to Private Secretary [FCO], 1 August 2007, ‘Iraq:
Locally Engaged Staff’.
421