The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
comprehensive
strategy across all lines of activity, to prosecute it in detail
and to review
it
monthly”.
540.
Mr Etherington
highlighted the need adequately to fund PRT running
and
programme
costs. The PRT had been allocated £350,000 for “start-up” costs; a
request
for
additional funding had been sent to PCRU. Mr Etherington
estimated that the cost of
running the
PRT (including the cost of the three consultants provided by PCRU)
would
be US$1.74m
per year. The US had allocated US$15m to each PRT for
programme
costs but
those funds were unlikely to appear before the summer and would in
any
case be
insufficient for a province of Basra’s size and challenges. In the
meantime,
the PRT
might be able to access US CERPs funding and some
£190,000 from DFID’s
Governorate
Capacity Building Project.
541.
Gen Jackson
visited Iraq from 15 to 18 May.311
He reported to
Air Chief Marshal
Sir Jock
Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff, that there appeared to be some
confusion
about the
role of the Basra PRT. Mr Etherington believed that its role
was to deliver
the
“coherent UK cross-government approach” in the South that was
currently lacking.
Others
believed that the PRT should limit itself to reconstruction. Gen
Jackson
commented:
“I sense
that we, the UK, have not really thought what we want our PRT to
achieve.
If we have,
it is not clear in theatre.”
542.
Gen Jackson
reported that his meetings in Basra had caused him to
“reflect
once again
on the extent to which our military progress in Iraq is mortgaged
against
the
economic and political LOO [line of operation]”. The constraints
imposed on
the
economic line of operation by the UK’s International Development
Act were an
“enduring concern”:
“To be
involved in two campaigns simultaneously [Iraq and Afghanistan]
where one
of our
three levers of national power is not sufficiently agile or
flexible to deliver
immediate
campaign effort seems absurd.”
543.
Prime Minister
Maliki appointed his Cabinet (minus the Ministers for
Interior,
Security
and Defence) on 20 May. The remaining Ministers were appointed on 8
June.
Sections
9.4 and 9.5 describe the formation of Prime Minister Maliki’s
Government.
544.
The 22 May
meeting of the ISOG discussed how to draw together a strategic
plan
to deliver
the UK’s objectives in Basra, in the light of the “serious
problems” that the
311
Minute
Jackson to CDS, 22 May 2006, ‘CGS Visit to Iraq: 15-18 May
06’.
312
Letter
Aldred to Lamb, Cooper & Kavanaugh, 23 May 2006, ‘Basra: The
Way Forward’ attaching Paper,
[undated],
‘Getting Basra Better: A Strategic Agenda for Action’.
286