6.4 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001
to January 2003
“... there
was also a surge of hope, certainly on my part, that this would
give us more
time.
“Indeed,
some exchanges I had with my opposite number in Washington
suggested
that,
despite all the difficulties … it was not impossible to think that
one could delay
things
until the autumn of 2003, and that would have been a very good
thing, not
least
because we would then have extra time for the planning that was
necessary.”404
843.
Mr Lee told
the Inquiry that, by mid-November, there had been a lot of
conceptual
thinking
and analytical work on day after planning in Whitehall and there
was “a fairly
clear idea
of the sort of things that needed to be pursued”.405
His sense
throughout the
autumn was
that, although the US “would agree with the propositions that we
put to
them”, it
had not made much progress “translating that into some sort of
plan”. During
a visit to
Washington on 11 and 12 November, he and Lt Gen Pigott had
suggested
post-conflict
planning should be given the same level of attention and resource
as
conflict
planning: “they recognised the point, and I think they had some
sort of staff
effort mobilised
… towards post-conflict planning, but … nothing on the scale of
the
conflict
planning”.
844.
The record of
the 15 November meeting of the AHGI stated that UN
planning
for
conflict and post-Saddam Hussein Iraq was
deepening.406
The UN was
now in
contact
with the US. The US and UK agreed that the IMF and World Bank would
have
a leading
role in helping economic recovery in Iraq. The AHGI agreed that the
Treasury
and DFID
should instruct the UK Delegation to the IMF and the International
Bank for
Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD) in Washington to find out what planning was
in
hand and
encourage further work.
845.
The record
also stated that the Cabinet Office would consult departments on
the
best way to
influence US thinking on whether the US or UN should lead an
interim
administration
before the second round of US/UK discussions later in the
year.
846.
Two weeks
later, at the 29 November meeting of the AHGI, it was reported
that
the FCO
would start work on a further paper on the UN role in post-Saddam
Hussein
Iraq
“to help bridge the gap with US thinking”.407
That paper
and the FCO paper on SSR
would need
to be shared with the US before the next bilateral
discussions.
847.
Mr Fernie
produced a separate summary of the main points discussed at the
AHGI
on 29
November, which recorded a difference of opinion between the
Cabinet Office
and the FCO
on the timing of the next round of talks with the US, with the
Cabinet Office
preferring
mid-December and the FCO early January.408
404
Public
hearing, 1 December 2009, page 40.
405
Private
hearing, 22 June 2010, pages 40-41.
406
Minute Dodd
to Manning, 18 November 2002, ‘Ad Hoc Group on Iraq’.
407
Minute Dodd
to Manning, 3 December 2002, ‘Ad Hoc Group on Iraq’.
408
Minute
Fernie to Brewer, 3 December 2002, ‘Iraq: Contingency
planning’.
255