The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
408.
A Cabinet
Office update for Ministers on 29 May reported that (unspecified)
recent
initiatives
by Ambassador Bremer and the DoD underlined the need to press the
US
to consult
more systematically with the UK.231
The UK was
having some success at
influencing
US thinking, including through Mr Sawers, the British Embassy
Washington,
an FCO
Legal Adviser seconded to the CPA, and regular contacts between US
and UK
lawyers (in
the last few days, those contacts had persuaded the US to drop the
death
penalty
from a CPA Penal Order), but consultation remained “haphazard”.
Ministers
should be
prepared for “further abrupt changes in US policy”.
409.
Mr Sawers
reported by telegram on 1 June:
“ORHA is no
more, replaced by the Coalition Provision Authority …
“Jay Garner
departed on 1 June … ORHA, with its reputation as a failure, is
being
buried with
him. Bremer’s brisk management style and additional powers
have
enabled him
to impose a new structure with a new name that should lead to a
more
coherent
approach to re-building Iraq.”232
410.
Mr Sawers
advised that Mr Andy Bearpark would be the CPA’s Director
of
Operations,
with: “Across the board responsibility for policy implementation,
leading on
top
priority tasks, managing the CPA’s regional structure, and
operational co-ordination
with the
UN.” Mr Bearpark arrived in Baghdad on 16 June; his role is
considered later in
this
Section.
411.
Hard
Lessons recorded that
ORHA had 600 staff when it was absorbed by the CPA
during
May.233
That fell
“far short of what it [the CPA] needed to manage its
burgeoning
relief and
reconstruction program”.
412.
Also on 1
June, the Deputy to Ambassador Olsen in ORHA(South), a UK
official,
sent two
reports to Mr Chilcott. The first offered her first
impressions:
•
“Office
infrastructure was (and still is) virtually non-existent, living
conditions
were (and
still are) pretty miserable …”
•
ORHA(South)
had no operating budget and was running, “sparsely”, on
funding
from the
Danish Foreign Ministry and Ambassador Olsen’s own bank
account.
•
ORHA(South)
had no security guards or caterers, and had been
forbidden
from
contracting them directly. UK pressure on ORHA(Baghdad) to provide
that
support
would be appreciated.
•
ORHA(South)
had 21 staff (eight UK civilians, five UK military officers,
five
Danish
civilians, two US military officers, and one Japanese civilian).
Additional
staff were
arriving “in trickles” but were predominately military officers and
had
231
Paper
Cabinet Office, 29 May 2003, ‘Iraq: Update for
Ministers’.
232
Telegram 27
IraqRep to FCO London, 1 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Coalition Provisional
Authority’.
233
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing
Office,
2009.
74