The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
616.
Sir Hilary
reported his first impressions from Basra on 7
August.340
He wrote
that
CPA(South)
was not well thought of in the CPA. Mr Bearpark had told him
that it was
the least
effective of the CPA’s regional offices “by a long way”. Feelings
in CPA(South)
about
CPA(Baghdad) were equally negative. Sir Hilary assessed that much
of the
problem
stemmed from poor communication in both directions, leading to a
high level
of mutual
misunderstanding.
617.
In that
context, Sir Hilary reported:
“I have no
secure communication at all with Baghdad or London (both
deficiencies
are now on
their way to being rectified, although I may yet call for a push
from
the FCO);
e-mails are usually by means of free Yahoo or Hotmail ISPs; there
are
no
telephone landlines; mobile coverage is sketchy, which leaves a few
sat[ellite]
phones. All
of this should have improved by the end of the month.”
618.
Sir Hilary
also reported that Ambassador Bremer had agreed his three
“procedural
priorities”:
•
to improve
the information flow and consultation between Baghdad and
Basra;
•
to set
priorities for work in the South, in line with wider CPA
objectives; and
•
to upgrade
living and working conditions in CPA(South).
619.
On the second
point, Sir Hilary reported that he had agreed a proposal
from
Major
General Graeme Lamb, GOC MND(SE), to establish a Joint
Co-ordination Board
comprising
the UK Division, CPA(South) and the UN. The first meeting had
revealed a
“heartening
commonality of approach and attitude”.
620.
Sir Hilary
wrote in his memoir that his arrival, along with the British
military
command of
MND(SE), established “some sort of British Fiefdom” in the South,
but one
which he
saw as “still entirely dependent on American resources for its
lifeblood”.341
621.
Sir Hilary
told the Inquiry that one major benefit of his appointment as Head
of
CPA(South)
was that he and Maj Gen Lamb were able to work “formally very
close
together”,
increasing their influence with the CPA and London.342
One
difficulty was
the
tendency of some UK Cabinet Ministers to make public statements
about the UK’s
exemplary
approach in the South, which overlooked CPA(South)’s dependence on
US
financial
resources:
“… I know
that the Americans in Baghdad were pretty upset with this British
…
boasting.
As I was, because I was worried that this would freeze up the
flow
of
resources.”
340
Telegram 42
FCO to UKRep Iraq, 7 August 2003, ‘Iraq: Basra: First Impressions
and Work in Hand’.
341
Synnott
H. Bad Days in
Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq. I B
Tauris & Co
Ltd.,
2008.
342
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, pages 11-12.
108