The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

196.  As part of the preparation for his meeting with President Bush at Hillsborough

on 7 and 8 April, Mr Blair requested information on six issues:

• the duration of each post-conflict phase;

• a summary of the tribes, regions and governorates of Iraq;

• a summary of exile groups and their credibility;

• the UK’s “vision” of how the UN Special Co-ordinator might work with Coalition

Forces;

• an assessment of “how ORHA and then the IIA will actually run Iraqi ministries”;

and

• an assessment of the state of the Iraqi civil service and bureaucracy.114

197.  The FCO sent papers on each of those issues to No.10 on 4 April.115 Three had

been produced by the IPU and three by FCO Research Analysts.

198.  The IPU paper on the post-conflict phases emphasised the timetable’s

dependence on a range of factors:

• the permissiveness of the security environment;

• the emergence of credible Iraqi leaders;

• Iraqi attitudes towards the Coalition; and

• the extent of Phase III damage to infrastructure.116

199.  The IPU stated that the Iraqi people were likely to be more co-operative after

a “swift and relatively clean collapse” of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Lt Gen Garner’s

working assumption was that ORHA would fulfil its role for 30 to 90 days. Over time, its

legitimacy in Iraqi eyes would decline and pressure would increase for it to get involved

in reconstruction and reform work that exceeded what was legal for an Occupying Power.

The UK would therefore want “a fairly rapid transition to an Iraqi Interim Authority – while

allowing some time for credible leaders to emerge from within Iraq”.

200.  In a paper on “How ORHA and then the IIA will actually run the Iraqi ministries”,

the IPU stated that the UK’s vision for Iraq was a transition from a command economy

with a corrupt public administration to a democratic state with a liberal, market economy

and a public sector that served the interests of its people, “something comparable to the

transformations of central European countries after the fall of the Berlin wall”.117

201.  The IPU reported that Lt Gen Garner planned to deploy ORHA to Baghdad as

soon as it was safe to do so and to establish, with the Coalition military, a “Coalition

Provisional Administration” with control over the civil administration of Iraq.

114  Letter Rycroft to Owen, 3 April 2003, ‘Post-Conflict Iraq: UK/US’.

115  Letter Owen to Rycroft, 4 April 2003, ‘Post-Conflict Iraq: UK/US’.

116  Paper Iraq Planning Unit, 4 April 2003, ‘Iraq: Post Conflict Phases: Timing’.

117  Paper Iraq Planning Unit, 4 April 2003, ‘How ORHA and then the IIA will actually run the Iraqi ministries’.

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