The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
598.
The FCO
circulated follow-up papers on the possible shape of an
international
administration
for Iraq and on SSR to the AHGI on 18 October. Both are described
later
in this
Section.
599.
Sir Peter
Ricketts told the Inquiry:
“We started
planning in the autumn of 2002, and at that point, of course, it
wasn’t
clear
exactly what scenario there would be in terms of a new regime in
Iraq, but we
assumed, I
think, from that point onwards, that we would be dealing with an
Iraq
without
Saddam Hussein and in the aftermath of a military
intervention.
“Therefore,
we based our planning on the assumption that the right vehicle for
that
would be
the UN, which had had extensive experience of post-conflict
stabilisation
work in a
number of different countries. But we looked at a range of
scenarios and a
range of
possible outcomes from ones where it might be possible to work with
large
parts of
the previous Iraqi administration to scenarios where it would not,
and we
had to look
at a fairly wide range of scenarios.”310
600.
Iraq was
discussed at a meeting Mr Ricketts attended with his US, French
and
German
counterparts in Berlin on 14 October.311
The record
stated that there was an
emerging
consensus from the US Future of Iraq Project that “the Republican
Guard
and Ba’ath
Party would have to go; but some feeling that medium and lower
levels of
government
might remain, as might non-senior members of the military”. Mr
Ricketts
indicated
he thought it “likely the Ba’ath Party would implode
post-Saddam”.
601.
In the US, the
CIA considered the Ba’ath Party in two reports in October
2002.312
602.
The first,
‘Iraq: the Day After’, dated 18 October, assessed that the Ba’ath
Party
would
collapse along with Saddam Hussein’s regime, but
added:
“Despite
the improbability that Ba’ath ideology will persist after Saddam,
much of
the
infrastructure of the Party within civilian sectors, such as
professional and civil
associations,
may sustain to facilitate a restoration of government
services.”
603.
On the role of
Iraqi military and security services, the paper stated that
“many
troops must
be quickly disarmed and demobilized to remove a potential focal
point
for Sunni
coup plotting”, and that “certain units are so dominated by …
pro-Saddam
tribesmen
or otherwise so intimately linked to the regime that their
continued existence
will be
incompatible with democracy”. The paper judged that officers who
favoured a
professional
military ethos or saw themselves as guardians of Iraqi national
values
“may play
a role in the post-Saddam military”.
310
Public
hearing 9 December 2003, pages 62-63.
311
Telegram
390 Berlin to FCO London, 14 October 2002, ‘Iraq Restricted: Close
Allies: 14 October:
Iraq Post-Saddam’.
312
US Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on
Prewar Intelligence Assessments about
Post‑war
Iraq, 25 May
2007.
216