The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
926.
Sir Hilary
contrasted progress on the Essential Services Plan with progress
on
larger
infrastructure projects:
“By January
… the deteriorating security environment and the prospect that the
CPA
would be
wound up in less than six months had all but destroyed the momentum
of
the bigger,
Baghdad-led projects.”
UK
Government lobbying on behalf of UK business intensified in early
2004, in
anticipation
of the US contracts that would be funded from the US$18.4bn Iraq
Relief
and
Reconstruction Fund (IRRF2) and against a background of growing
press and
Parliamentary
criticism that UK companies were at a disadvantage in bidding
for
US‑funded
contracts. Section 10.3 describes the UK Government’s support for
UK
business in
detail.
The 20
January 2004 meeting of the ISOG concluded that the UK needed a
“proper
campaign
plan” involving Ministers and the British Embassy Washington,
targeting
the next
tranche of US-funded contracts that would be awarded by the US
Program
Management
Office (PMO) in March.532
UK Trade
and Investment (UKTI) submitted a paper on UK access to
US-funded
reconstruction
contracts to the 22 January meeting of the AHMGIR.533
UKTI
assessed
that UK
companies had good access to most US-funded contracts, but had
achieved only
limited
success so far. The recent award of two US-funded oil contracts to
US companies
(bids with
significant UK components had not been successful, despite lobbying
by
Ministers)
suggested that the UK needed to take a “stronger and more active
political line”
in
Washington to lobby for UK commercial interests.
Mr Mike
O’Brien, FCO Parliamentary Under Secretary of State circulated a
core script for
a lobbying
campaign targeting the US to Mr Straw, Ms Hewitt,
Mr Boateng, Mr Benn and
senior
officials on 9 February.534
The core
script highlighted the strengths of UK industry
and
expressed the hope that UK companies would be given the opportunity
to display
those
strengths in the reconstruction process.
In his
covering note, Mr O’Brien stated that UK companies assessed
that US procurement
procedures
were “essentially fair”, were not critical of the UK Government’s
support,
but were
convinced that there was now a window of opportunity to press the
US.
Mr O’Brien
stated that all Ministers needed to ensure that the US was “in no
doubt about
the
political importance we attach to UK firms being seen to contribute
actively to the
reconstruction
process”.
Mr Straw
wrote to US Secretary of State Colin Powell on 17 February,
expressing the
UK’s
disappointment that UK companies had not secured either of the oil
infrastructure
rehabilitation
contracts, expressing the UK’s hope that UK companies would play
a
532
Record, 20
January 2004, Iraq Senior Officials Group meeting.
533 Annotated
Agenda, 21 January 2004, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting attaching Paper
UKTI, 20
January 2004, ‘Access to US-funded Reconstruction
Contracts’.
534
Minute
O’Brien to Foreign Secretary, 9 February 2004, [untitled] attaching
Briefing, [undated], ‘UK Bids
for CPA
Program Management Office Prime Contracts’.
160