The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
24.
The meeting
endorsed the three papers, and commissioned the FCO to
co-ordinate
an
integrated UK strategy covering the period up to the Iraqi
elections for discussion at
the meeting
of the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee (DOP), a
sub-Committee
of the
Cabinet, on 15 July.
25.
In his first
report from Basra on 12 July, Mr Simon Collis, the British
Consul
General,
reported that no PCO staff had yet arrived in Basra to spend the
South’s
US$2.3bn projected
share of IRRF2.9
He
continued:
“… no one
here – including my US counterpart – knows yet how the third
entirely
new
organisation in just over a year10
will
organise itself and do business. There
must be a
high risk that money will be spent slowly, inappropriately, and
without
adequate
consultation with ourselves or, more importantly, the
Iraqis.”
26.
Mr Collis
also advised that there were still no effective mechanisms in place
to
enable
Iraqi ministries to release funds to Basra.
27.
The strategy
paper commissioned by the AHMGIR on 1 July was circulated
to
members of
DOP on 13 July.11
The
introduction to the paper said that it offered:
“… a
strategic look at the position we want Iraq to be in at the end of
January 2005;
risks to
our strategy; and priority areas in which the UK can help ensure
success.”
28.
The paper,
which had been produced by the FCO, defined the political, security
and
“reconstruction
and economic” objectives for the period up to the Iraqi elections.
The
three
objectives for reconstruction and the economy were:
•
a
functioning Iraqi Government in Baghdad and at governorate level
capable of
delivering
basic services;
•
reconstruction
programmes funded by the PCO, the UN and World Bank
Trust
Funds,
bilateral donors and the Iraqi Government which were delivering
jobs and
improvements
to infrastructure and services; and
•
a reduction
in subsidies and an agreed IMF programme leading to a
debt
settlement
by December.
29.
The paper
identified security as the most significant risk to achieving
those
objectives,
in particular the risk of “a terrorist spectacular” against either
the IIG
or
the UN. Other risks included infrastructure failures over the
summer leading to
popular discontent.
9
Telegram 76
Basra to FCO London, 12 July 2004, ‘First Impressions of
Basra’.
10
The PCO,
following the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
(ORHA) and the Coalition
Provisional
Authority (CPA).
11 Paper
FCO, 13 July 2004, ‘Iraq: The Next Six Months’.
202