The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
644.
One member of
DFID staff was slightly injured in the attack.355
645.
The Annotated
Agenda for the 28 August meeting of the AHMGIR reported
that:
“World Bank
and IMF Missions, which were working from the UN building,
have
been
withdrawn. A number of NGOs are withdrawing their international
staff. The
ICRC is
thinning out its staff. The UN is maintaining operations, but some
staff
have been
withdrawn from Baghdad temporarily while decisions on future
security
arrangements
are made.”356
646.
The Annotated
Agenda continued that, in the absence of some UN and
NGO
international
staff, and with additional constraints on remaining
staff:
“… local
staff should be able to continue to implement most existing
humanitarian
and
reconstruction programmes, including running the food distribution
system,
at least in
the short-term. However, there will be an immediate impact on
new
programmes,
which in many cases will not now go ahead.”
647.
A report into
the incident commissioned by the UN recorded that, at the time of
the
bombing,
there were between 350 and 550 UN international staff in
Baghdad.357
Although
most of
those staff were withdrawn following the bombing, the UN
Secretary-General
declined
two recommendations from UN officials, on 2 and 22 September, to
evacuate
all UN
international staff from Iraq. By early October, there were between
20 and 30 UN
international
staff in Baghdad and between 5 and 10 across the rest of
Iraq.
648.
Sir Hilary
Synnott told the Inquiry:
“After
the attack … the Spanish and Japanese Governments ordered their
civilians
to leave.
And on 30 August, of course, the UN ordered their expatriates to
leave
also.
Everybody else stayed.” 358
649.
Mr Bearpark
described the effect of the bombing in his evidence to the
Inquiry:
“… on that
day, an enormous body of knowledge, wisdom and ability was
lost.
“But the
other factors were even more important than that. The first one was
that, for
entirely
understandable and probably correct reasons, the UN system …
[including]
the World
Bank and the IMF withdrew from Iraq. It is very difficult to
overstate the
chaos that
caused for the CPA, because all your interlocutors suddenly
vanished …
“… that
leads me on to the third factor .. which is that it recreated the
animosity
within the
CPA to the UN system … it did enable the UN-disliking elements of
the
CPA to feel
justified in their original behaviour, even though very slowly,
carefully and
355
Minutes, 28
August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
356 Annotated
Agenda, 28 August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
357
The
Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of UN Personnel in
Iraq, 20 October 2003, Report
of
The
Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of UN Personnel in
Iraq.
358
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, page 111.
112