6.4 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001
to January 2003
reform”,
including removal of “the pervasive influence of the Ba’ath Party”,
the US
believed
“reasonably competent ministries” remained beneath permanent
secretary level
and that,
because the Ba’ath Party operated as a parallel structure to
government below
that level,
“less radical change is needed”. Mr Drummond suggested that both
the UK
and US
governments would need to develop and test their thinking more
thoroughly.
829.
On SSR, Mr
Drummond reported agreement on the need for rapid and
comprehensive
reform of Iraqi security structures. He expected the US to
“maintain a
tight grip
on this”, but the UK had “urged them to think about the wider
security sector
including
police and the need to arrive with a plan (ie not as in
Afghanistan)”.
830.
The US seemed
to be “well ahead with thinking about the humanitarian
consequences
of military action”, though less so the impact of CBW use; was
“focused
on the need
for urgent rehabilitation of infrastructure”; wanted to establish a
trust fund
for
transparent administration of oil revenues; and agreed Iraqi debts
would require
rescheduling.
831.
On war crimes,
Mr Drummond said that the US was working to identify “the top
30
bad guys”
with no future in a successor regime, but had not focused on how to
deal with
any who
might survive the conflict: “Given the time and cost of
international tribunals we
offered to
consider whether any Iraqi legal processes might be usable.” Mr
Drummond
reported an
absence of “serious thinking about Truth and Reconciliation”, but
suggested
“that can
be pursued later”.
832.
Mr Drummond
concluded:
“We expect
a further meeting in London or Washington, before the end of the
year.
There is
likely to be a separate session in December between DFID and NSC
and
USAID. But
this was a useful start and revealed that the US had done some
detailed
work and
inter-agency coordination is working.”
833.
Some of the
differences between the UK and US positions described by
Mr
Drummond
were addressed in a paper on possible interim administrations in
Iraq
produced by
the FCO and shared with the US in mid-December. The FCO paper
is
described
later in this Section.
834.
Ms Miller, the
DFID member of the UK delegation, provided her own
assessment
for Ms
Short, reporting that the US was “reluctant to concede a meaningful
role to the
UN at any
stage of the process”, but that USAID took a slightly different
position.400
At her
meeting with officials from USAID’s Office for Foreign Disaster
Assistance
(OFDA), she
had been told “we should assume a UN lead for planning
purposes”.
Nevertheless,
she was concerned that “USAID still see themselves and DFID as
the
two main
Coalition leads”.
400
Minute
Miller to P/S Secretary of State [DFID], 7 November 2002, ‘Main
Issues from Whitehall Visit
to Washington:
Iraq’.
253