Previous page | Contents | Next page
The Report of the Iraq Inquiry
1066.  Mr Charlton highlighted two potential problems:
a funding gap as the CPA closed and the IIG took on responsibility for managing
expenditure through the DFI; and
local instability as CPA Governorate Teams left: Governors and Provincial
Councils were mostly inexperienced with varying degrees of local legitimacy;
some would fail without a Coalition presence.
1067.  Mr Dominic Asquith, Deputy Chief Commissioner in the CPA, reported from
Baghdad on 6 June that Prime Minister Allawi had accepted assistance from DFID’s
Emergency Public Administration Programme (EPAP) team to set up his office, and
would welcome support from the FCO on media operations.625
1068.  Mr Asquith reported on 11 June that DFID was significantly expanding the EPAP
consultancy team in response to the Iraqi demand for the work, including on media and
communications.626
The state of provincial administration in the South,
June 2004
Maj Gen Stewart, GOC MND(SE), and Mr Nixon sought to meet the Governors in each of
the four southern Provinces during June, to discuss the transition and help prepare them
to assume “real and heavy administrative responsibilities”.627
An MOD official reported on 4 June on their visits to Maysan and Dhi Qar:
“… the Provincial administrations have yet to understand the implications of the
transfer of authority, i.e. that they will soon be fully responsible for Provincial
government. Inexperienced and uninformed in governance, the assumption of
administrative responsibility makes them uneasy. They are unhappy that the support
and advice that they receive from the CPA over the past year will end. Central
government in Baghdad is unreliable, and cannot be depended on to provide
uninterrupted finance and other support in absence of the kind of mediation that CPA
officials have provided. We are thinking of using MOD civil servants (policy advisers)
to help fill the gap until FCO/DFID or US project personnel are available, as planned.”
Maj Gen Stewart reported to No.10 on 10 June that, in contrast, the Governor of
Muthanna, a “dominant figure in the Province”, was eager to take on full responsibility
after 30 June.628 He was, however, “likely to limit the emergence of genuinely effective
representative political institutions”.
The joint visit to Basra was delayed by ongoing attempts to reconstitute the Provincial
Council and the need to appoint a new Governor.
625  Telegram 286 Asquith to FCO London, 6 June 2004, ‘Iraq: Meeting with the Prime Minister’; Telegram
288 Asquith to FCO London, 6 June 2004, ‘Reconstruction Development and Essential Services’.
626  Telegram 310 Asquith to FCO London, 11 June 2004, ‘Iraq: Support to the Prime Minister and Cabinet’.
627  Minute MOD [junior official] to CJO, 4 June 2004, ‘GOC MND(SE) – Iraq Update’.
628  Minute Stewart to Rycroft, 10 June 2004, ‘GOC MND(SE) – Iraq Update’.
184
Previous page | Contents | Next page