The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
179.
The report
identified possible DFID priorities for 2005:
•
continued
support to strengthen Iraq’s public administration, including
Prime
Minister
Allawi’s office;
•
continued
support for economic reform, including a renewed effort to get
the
World Bank
and IMF back into Baghdad. Their officials could be
accommodated
in the
“DFID wing” of the British Embassy;
•
substantial,
additional support for job creation and “emergency
infrastructure
works” in
the South; and
•
a further
contribution to the UN and World Bank Trust Funds when there
was
hard
evidence of delivery, and the UN was back on the
ground.
180.
Copies of the
report were sent to the FCO, the MOD, No.10, the Cabinet
Office
and
officials in Baghdad and Basra.
181.
DFID’s
intentions were set out in more detail in a minute from
Mr Drummond to
a DFID
official two days later:
“… we will
have to take more of the strain in 2005 on infrastructure. The TAT
team
and others
should begin thinking now about what can be done with UK
resources
(possibly
up to £50m) so that there are ideas ready to be
appraised.” 103
182.
That work
would culminate in the agreement by Mr Benn of the £40m
Iraq
Infrastructure
Services Programme (IISP) in late February 2005.
183.
Mr Chaplin
reported on 15 December that the US review of IRRF2 had
reduced
funding for
water and power projects in Basra.104
The
reallocations had not been based
on Iraqi
advice or geographical need, but on a US desire to avoid breaching
existing
contracts
and the PCO’s belief that larger projects in the South could be
more easily
funded by
other donors.
184.
Major General
Jonathon Riley, General Officer Commanding (GOC)
MND(SE),
reported on
20 December:
“Wherever I
go … I am greeted by Provincial Governors and others with the
same
set of
complaints: that the promises made to them have been broken, that
things are
getting
worse not better … The increase in my QIPS delegation is massively
helpful,
but the
amount of money cannot change the overall situation. DFID is
working really
very
efficiently, and we have a real partnership here, but this is not
natural territory
for them
and again, their funds will not change the overall situation. The
solution
lies with
Central Government in Baghdad and the PCO, which together have
raided
major
projects in the South, such as the electricity programme, in order
to fund
security. I
have tried to point out that investing in the South now, where the
security
103
Minute
Drummond to DFID [junior official], 15 December 2004, ‘Iraq: Visit
Follow-up’.
104
Telegram
475 Baghdad to FCO London, 15 December 2004, ‘Iraq: PCO Water and
Power Sectors’.
226