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
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