The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
talking in
terms of tens of billions of dollars; the UK needed to be thinking
in terms of
much larger
figures than it had to date, “hundreds of millions of pounds, if
not more, plus
a
significant increase in staffing in the South and
Governorates”.
691.
UK staffing in
CPA(Baghdad) was “about right”, but CPA(South) and the other
CPA
regions
were “woefully under-staffed”. The UK would have to staff
CPA(South) itself. The
Government
should try to meet all of Sir Hilary’s requests for additional
staff.
692.
Sir Hilary
Synnott described the genesis of the Essential Services Plan in
his
memoir.384
In early
August, the UK military, spurred by security concerns and
“deeply
unimpressed”
by the available civilian capability, had contracted Mott MacDonald
to
design a
package of quick-impact, carefully targeted infrastructure
projects, without
consultation
with CPA(South) or other partners. Sir Hilary commented that,
while
understandable,
“the furtive manner in which the [military’s] plan was
conceived
amounted to
a challenge to the civilian role in the South”.
693.
Once the
military’s plan was completed, it could no longer be kept
hidden.
Sir Hilary
immediately realised that funding would have to come from
CPA(Baghdad) or
London, and
that they would provide funding only if the package was perceived
to be
compatible
with existing plans. He therefore convened a meeting between
MND(SE)
and CPA(South)
to develop a joint Essential Services Plan.
694.
Sir Hilary
Synnott also realised that the CPA’s contracting and
accounting
procedures
were unlikely to produce the funds within the necessary timescale
and that
CPA(Baghdad)
might baulk at providing additional funding for CPA(South), which
it
regarded as
a “side-show”. DFID would not normally provide such a large amount
of
money. Sir
Hilary therefore proposed that DFID should “kick-start” the project
with a
contribution
of £20m, and then the UK should press the CPA to provide the
balance.
However,
“if Baghdad proved obdurate, we could shame DFID into providing
it”.
695.
In his
evidence to the Inquiry, Sir Hilary said that the Essential
Services Plan was
informed by
his previous experience of reconstruction:
“When I
went round Baghdad in the early days … the view I got from USAID
and
others was
that this place is broken … and we have let out contracts to big
American
firms to
put it all right. My heart sank at that point because … I knew how
long big
projects
took to get going, and I was also increasingly aware of the
unpermissive
security
environment. That reinforced me in my view that we should be going
for
more of an
emergency plan rather than big contracts, and I think, indeed,
history
shows that
virtually none of the big contracts ever came to
fruition.”385
384
Synnott
H. Bad Days in
Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq. I B
Tauris & Co
Ltd.,
2008.
385
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, page 29.
120