10.1 |
Reconstruction: March 2003 to June 2004
595.
The Review
also provided a detailed assessment of the state of health
services,
nutrition
and food distribution, water supply, sanitation, power,
infrastructure, education
services,
agriculture and livestock, Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and
refugees,
mines and
unexploded ordnance, public information, and
co-ordination.
596.
On
co-ordination in the South, DFID advised that the UN and CPA
remained
“at arms
length” leading to a dysfunctional approach in the South and no
real leadership:
“The
elements of an effective strategy are distributed among the
players
and
co‑ordination is not yet sufficient to harness resources (primarily
USAID
contractors), and
experience (UN) under the current authority (CPA).
…
“The shadow
of Baghdad looms over all co-ordination issues, with local
solutions
regularly
undermined by unilateral decisions or lack of direction from the
centre.”
597.
DFID assessed
that the decision to establish GTs had further
undermined
CPA(South)’s
ability to exert its authority.
598.
The Inquiry
has seen no indications that the Review was circulated to
other
departments.
599.
Mr Sawers’
28 July valedictory report from Baghdad offered a generally
positive
assessment
of progress in the three months since the invasion.328
He
commented:
“The
Coalition didn’t exactly help itself. The needs of the
post-conflict planning never
received
sufficient attention … We wasted not only the first month after
Saddam fell,
but also
the six months before that when we should have been planning
realistically.”
600.
There was real
progress on security, the political process and the
economy
(salaries
were being paid, food was being distributed, commerce on the street
was lively,
and there
was a strong commitment to economic reform backed by the World Bank
and
the IMF).
Although there was still a long way to go in all three
areas:
“… the CPA
under Jerry Bremer has plans in place on all fronts. ‘Drift’ isn’t
a word in
his
vocabulary. We may only be at the five mile mark in this marathon,
but the route
ahead is
mapped out, and the runners know what they have to
do.”
601.
Mr Sawers
did not consider the progress in the South.
602.
Mr David
Richmond succeeded Mr Sawers as the Prime Minister’s
Special
Representative
on Iraq on an interim basis, and remained in post until Sir
Jeremy
Greenstock
arrived in September (see Section 9.2). Mr Richmond remained
in Iraq
as Sir
Jeremy’s deputy.
328
Telegram
101 IraqRep to FCO London, 28 July 2003, ‘Iraq: How Far Have We
Come?’.
105