6.4 | Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001 to January 2003

55. Mr Howard stated that the DIS produced “a mass of material, even in the short

time we had available, and I’m not sure that there would have been a fundamental

improvement in what we could have provided if we had had another few months”.38

56. Mr Howard did not recall the Red Team having a huge impact on work done by

DIS. It raised “some interesting points”, but “in the end, although it had a senior level

distribution list … the practical impact would have been at the analytical level, rather

than necessarily the policy making level”.39

57. Mr Ian Lee, MOD Director General Operational Policy (DG OpPol) from September

2002 to May 2004, told the Inquiry that the MOD looked to the DIS for information about

what the UK should expect to encounter in Iraq after a military campaign, including the

state of the country, its sectarian, ethnic, political, and economic makeup.40 There was

not much detail available. Mr Lee described the written briefing as “a bit generalised”.

58. Major General Michael Laurie, MOD Director General Intelligence Collection from

2000 to 2003, told the Inquiry he did not recall the DIS being tasked to look at the

situation after the campaign, but did recall “a general feeling that we weren’t paying

as much attention to follow‑on operations and what would happen as we should have

done”.41 He agreed that it would have been within the DIS remit to consider the state of

Iraq’s infrastructure: the DIS had a number of teams working on infrastructure issues

and had an established capability to collect open source information, including from the

academic and scientific communities.

59. The Cabinet Office contains the Cabinet Secretariats, which support the Cabinet

and Cabinet committees, and draw staff from across government.42 Between 2001 and

2003 the Overseas and Defence Secretariat (OD Sec)43 was responsible for foreign and

defence policy issues, of which Iraq was one.44

60. The Head of OD Sec (Sir David Manning from September 2001) was also Mr Blair’s

Foreign Policy Adviser.45 In 2001 and 2002, of about a dozen staff in OD Sec, just two

had any responsibility for Iraq.46 In both cases, Iraq was only part of their job.

38 Private hearing, 18 June 2010, page 23.

39 Private hearing, 18 June 2010, page 27.

40 Private hearing, 22 June 2010, pages 42-52.

41 Private hearing, 3 June 2010, pages 21-27.

42 Statement McKane, 8 December 2010, page 1.

43 Later renamed the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat (F&DP Sec) and now part of the National

Security Secretariat).

44 Public hearing Manning, 30 November 2009, pages 44-45.

45 Public hearing Sheinwald, Sawers, Bowen, 16 December 2009, page 15.

46 Public hearing McKane, 19 January 2011, pages 2-3.

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