10.1 |
Reconstruction: March 2003 to June 2004
660.
Sir Hilary
Synnott told the Inquiry that he requested 37 additional staff
(“not
generalists
but experts”) and 20 armoured vehicles.366
661.
The Annotated
Agenda for the 28 August meeting of the AHMGIR reported that
the
situation
in southern Iraq remained “volatile”.367
There was
no evidence of a “significant
change in
local consent to the UK-led military presence, but the time
available before
dissatisfaction
with the pace of CPA delivery of services overflows is
shrinking”.
662.
Ministers
agreed that, “subject to security concerns”:
•
Officials
should consider and implement measures to improve the
power
situation
in south-eastern Iraq.
•
Ministers
should be advised on the impact on reconstruction of the
withdrawal
of international
staff and measures to mitigate the impact.
•
Sir Hilary
Synnott should be given “such assistance and staff as he
deemed
necessary
to improve the workings of CPA(South)”.368
663.
Ministers were
advised on 29 August that the MOD had commissioned and
now
received an
action plan for immediate improvements to the power sector in the
South.369
DFID
expected to meet the cost (estimated at US$30m), although that
might exhaust
their
budget for Iraq for the year.
664.
On the same
day, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Sir David Manning’s successor as
the
Prime
Minister’s Foreign Policy Adviser, gave Mr Blair his view of
immediate priorities
for Iraq.370
They
included:
•
another
surge in UK resources, both military (the MOD was undertaking a
review
which was
likely to lead to a proposal to increase UK troop numbers) and
for
reconstruction
(though UK numbers were dwarfed by the size of
Ambassador
Bremer’s
request to Congress371);
•
improving
utilities, most immediately electricity generation in the
South;
•
improving
CPA media handling: a CPA media director (Mr Gary Thatcher,
who
had
previously worked on The Chicago
Tribune372)
would arrive, “at last”, that
day;
and
•
a new
resolution “worth getting – to spread the military and
reconstruction load”.
366
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, page 15.
367 Annotated
Agenda, 28 August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
368
Minutes, 28
August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
369
Paper
Cabinet Office, 29 August 2003, ‘Iraq: Update 29 August
2003’.
370
Minute
Sheinwald to Prime Minister, 29 August 2003, ‘Iraq’.
371
The US
Administration submitted a request for US$20.3bn for reconstruction
in Iraq to Congress on
6
September.
372 Annotated
Agenda, 7 August 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
115