10.1 |
Reconstruction: March 2003 to June 2004
the worst
offenders”) and the existing Iraqi legal code, stripped of the more
repressive
elements
introduced by Saddam Hussein’s regime.129
The Red
Team judged that:
“If the IIA
can provide a secure environment (including the rule of law),
resolve
short‑term
economic problems and address immediate humanitarian
needs,
future Iraqi-led
government structures and a process of justice and
reconciliation
will emerge
naturally, given time.”
216.
On 9 April, in
his budget statement to the House of Commons, Mr Gordon
Brown,
the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that he had set aside “an
additional
US$100m” to
“back up the UN and the work of reconstruction and
development”
217.
On 15 April,
Mr Boateng advised Ms Short how those funds could be
drawn
down.131
He
understood that DFID did not need access to additional funds
immediately,
given that
humanitarian and reconstruction work was at a very early stage, and
that
DFID had
£95m of uncommitted resources, but he fully expected DFID to bid
for
additional
funding for Iraq “in the next few months”. Before DFID drew on the
new
allocation,
Ms Short should write to him, setting out her proposals for how the
additional
money would
be spent.
218.
Mr Straw
chaired the first meeting of the AHMGIR on 10
April.132
Mr Straw
told
the
meeting:
“The
prospects for further UN Security Council resolutions were
uncertain and
negotiations
were very likely to take weeks.”
219.
Lord Goldsmith
said that he was content for ORHA to undertake
humanitarian,
security
and public order duties and to restore civilian administration but
“it must be
careful not
to impose reform and restructuring without further legal
authority”. US and
UK lawyers
would try to agree a Memorandum of Understanding to define how the
UK
would be
consulted.
220.
Summing up the
discussion, Mr Straw described the meeting’s agreement
that
“the UK
should retain a right of veto in extremis” on ORHA activities. UK
support should
increase
and be formalised through:
•
confirmation
of Maj Gen Cross’s position as one of Lt Gen Garner’s
deputies;
•
an increase
in the number of UK secondees;
129
Minute
PS/CDI to APS2/SoS [MOD], 18 April 2003, ‘Iraq Red Team – The
Strands of the Rope’
attaching
Paper DIS Red Team, [undated], ‘Iraq Red Team: The Strands of the
Rope’.
130
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 9 April
2003, column 271.
131
Letter
Boateng to Short, 15 April 2003, ‘Budget announcement on
Iraq’.
132
Minutes, 10
April 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
43