10.1 |
Reconstruction: March 2003 to June 2004
•
take
forward measures to improve the synergies between the UK-led
Division
and
CPA(South);
•
strengthen
CPA(South) information capacity and examine projects to
foster
regional
media;
•
take
forward projects to improve law and order and re-establish
local
administration,
including by increasing UK funding for quick impact projects
from
£10m to
£16m, using DFID resources; and
•
spread UK
experience and best practice to the two new provinces in the
UK-led
494.
Closing the
meeting, Mr Straw commissioned “a short Iraq strategy paper”
for the
next
meeting, “agreed at UK official level prior to seeking agreement
with the US”.
495.
The Cabinet
Office wrote to the IPU on 16 June to propose that work on
that
strategy
paper should not continue because: “It now transpires that the CPA
is in the
process of
drafting its own strategy/vision document.”267
It would be
more sensible to
feed UK
views into that document.
496.
The meeting of
the AHMGIR officials’ group on the following day
invited
departments
to send comments on the CPA’s strategy paper to the
IPU.268
Comments
should
include the need to consider:
“…
environmental and sustainable development issues, the role of women
in the
political
process and reconstruction generally, the need for a more
prominent
reference
to the role of UN and the IFIs, and more specific legal wording;
UNSCR
1483 did
not give the CPA carte blanche.”
497.
The officials’
group agreed that the UK needed to impress on Ambassador
Bremer
and the US
“our right to be consulted” on such a fundamental joint Coalition
document.
498.
The CPA’s
strategy documents – ‘Vision for Iraq’ and ‘Achieving the Vision’ –
were
finalised
in July and are described later in this Section.
499.
Mr Andy
Bearpark arrived in Baghdad on 16 June to take up the post of
CPA
Director of
Operations.269
He was the
most senior UK official within the CPA.
500.
Mr Bearpark
told the Inquiry that he had received “very straightforward”
instructions
during a
meeting with Baroness Amos and Mr Chakrabarti before his
deployment:
“‘Look,
Andy, it is chaos out there. Nobody has the faintest idea of what’s
going
on …
We know you have got sharp elbows when you need to. Go out there
and
use them
and see what happens’…” 270
266
Minutes, 12
June 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
267
Minute Dodd
to Crompton, 16 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Ad Hoc Ministerial’.
268
Letter Dodd
to Manning, 18 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Rehabilitation’.
269
Paper
Cabinet Office, 18 June 2003, ‘Update for Ministers’; Statement
Bearpark, 25 June 2010, page 1.
270
Public
hearing, 6 July 2010, page 13.
89