10.2 |
Reconstruction: July 2004 to July 2009
6.
On 28 June
2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) formally handed
over to
a sovereign
Iraqi Government. In the 11 months that followed, the governance of
Iraq
was the
responsibility of the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG), headed by
Prime Minister
Ayad
Allawi.
7.
The security
situation in Iraq remained difficult.
8.
The core UK
Ministerial team was unchanged: Mr Brown remained
Chancellor
of the Exchequer,
Mr Straw Foreign Secretary, Mr Hoon Defence Secretary,
and
Mr Benn
International Development Secretary.
9.
Mr Straw
continued to chair the Ad Hoc Ministerial Group on Iraq
Rehabilitation
(AHMGIR),
which met seven times between July 2004 and February 2005, after
which
its
business was taken up by the Ad Hoc Ministerial Group on Iraq
(AHMGI).
10.
Mr David
Richmond, the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Iraq,
and
Ambassador
Paul Bremer, the CPA Administrator, left Iraq shortly after the
handover
11.
Ambassador
John Negroponte, the new US Ambassador to Iraq, presented
his
diplomatic
credentials to the IIG on 29 June.2
12.
Hard
Lessons described how,
shortly after arriving in Baghdad and driven by
his concern
about worsening security, Ambassador Negroponte put the
US$18.4bn
Iraq Relief
and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF2) on hold and initiated a
“thorough
re-examination”
of US priorities.
13.
Ambassador
Negroponte concluded that implementing economic
development
programmes
would be fruitless while security remained a serious problem.
Three
reallocations
of IRRF2 funds took place in September 2004, December 2004
and
March 2005.
Those reallocations provided additional funds for security, the
political
process and
“project sustainment” at the expense of infrastructure projects.
The water
and
sanitation sector lost nearly half its funding, and the electricity
sector almost a
quarter of
its funding.
14.
Mr Edward
Chaplin arrived in Baghdad on 5 July to take up post as the first
British
Ambassador
to Iraq since 1990.
1 Annotated
Agenda, 1 July 2004, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
2
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience.
U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2009.
199