6.4 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001
to January 2003
“MED and
Personnel Command discussed again this week the staff
numbers
required to
produce this structure, and other essential augmentation (for
example,
for the
Press Office and Consular Division) … But it will be vital that the
Board meets
early and
decides which tasks can fall away …
“This all
looks unwieldy, but I am confident that it will work … In managing
this, the
trick will
be to have a clear co-ordinating and tasking arrangement, without
vast
meetings …
We will need to keep [overseas] posts well briefed and targeted,
while
encouraging
them to exercise maximum restraint in reporting …”
930.
The Inquiry
has seen no response to Mr Ricketts from Sir Michael
Jay.
931.
The first Iraq
morning meeting for which the Inquiry has seen a record was
on
24
December.449
From 11
February 2003, Mr Ricketts chaired a second policy
meeting
most
evenings.450
The records
of each morning and evening meeting were sent to
Sir Michael
Jay’s office and copied widely in the FCO, to Dr Brewer in DFID,
and, from
3 February
2003, to Dr Simon Cholerton, an official in Sec(O) in the
MOD.
932.
The records
show that most meetings focused on negotiations at the
UN.
Post-conflict
issues, including the preparation of briefing for No.10, key
meetings with
the US, and
DFID’s humanitarian preparations, were also discussed, but were
often
reported in
less detail.
933.
Mr Ricketts
was right in December 2002 to try to ensure that the FCO
was
“thinking
ahead” and to involve a wide range of senior managers responsible
for
areas of
business affected by Iraq in the department’s preparations for an
“all-out
Iraq
crisis”. But the new arrangements represented a missed opportunity
to give
greater
prominence and coherence to the FCO’s work on post-conflict
issues.
934.
The FCO
published a report on Saddam Hussein’s crimes and human
rights
abuses in
early December.
935.
FCO
officials advised Mr Straw that there continued to be
differences
between UK
and US views on how to approach the prosecution of
Saddam
Hussein and
his inner circle.
936.
On 2 December
the FCO published a report on Saddam Hussein’s crimes
and
449
Minute
Middle East Department [junior official] to PS/PUS, 24 December
2002, ‘Iraq Morning Meeting:
Key
Points’.
450
Minute
Middle East Department [junior official] to PS/PUS, 11 February
2003, ‘Iraq Evening Meeting:
Key
Points’.
451
Foreign and
Commonwealth Office London, Saddam
Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses,
November
2002.
269