10.1 |
Reconstruction: March 2003 to June 2004
586.
Achieving the
Vision also defined a
large number of subsidiary objectives, and
set targets
for those objectives for October 2003, January 2004 and “February
2004
onwards”.
The target for power generation was to generate 4,000MW by October
2003
and 5,000MW
by January 2004 (from a base of 2,700MW in May 2003).
587.
Hard
Lessons assessed:
“The
CPA’s Achieving
the Vision suffered
from some serious flaws. First, Iraqis were
not
sufficiently consulted on it. The Iraqi Governing Council … was
never given a
chance to
provide advice on it … The CPA also had established overly
ambitious
infrastructure
outcomes before ascertaining baseline conditions and
before
determining
costs. Moreover, the outcomes had unrealistic completion dates,
some
by October
2003, just three months later.”323
588.
The Inquiry
asked Mr Bearpark if the CPA saw the ‘Vision for Iraq’ as a
framework
for
delivering an international or just a Coalition reconstruction
effort.324
He
replied:
“Paradoxically,
I think both of those things are true. I think in terms of
designing
of the
strategy, that was – it was nothing to do with the Coalition. It
was a purely
American-led
document. So this was the American vision of what should
happen,
what the
objectives should be.
“There was,
however, even at that stage, a recognition on the part of the CPA
that
the
delivery of these objectives would, in some cases, be impossible
without the
wider
involvement of the international community.
“So if you
like, the CPA viewed the international community as having no
role
whatsoever
in terms of setting the objectives, but as having a fairly useful
role in
terms of
delivering some of the objectives, and the easiest way of
expressing that
would, as
ever, be, in financial terms …”
589.
In his memoir,
Sir Hilary Synnott, who would take up post as Head of
CPA(South)
on 30 July,
recalled:
“My task
was to do my best to manage the region according to Bremer’s
plans.
Bremer had
the awful task of formulating the plan itself … I forced myself to
sit
down and
try to read the Vision’s electronic manifestation … The trouble was
it
did not
amount to an operational plan of action, only a list of subsidiary
objectives
under each
of these headings. There were no indications about how in practice
they
would be
achieved: no details of funding, of personnel involved, of support
systems
or of
timing. It was particularly notable that the ultimate objective, of
handing full
sovereignty
back to the Iraqi people, had no timing attached to it at
all.”325
323
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing
Office,
2009.
324
Public
hearing, 6 July 2010, page 25.
325
Synnott
H. Bad Days in
Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq. I B
Tauris & Co
Ltd.,
2008.
103