6.4 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001
to January 2003
•
What has
been the effect on good government of coping with sanctions?
How
much
activity has moved to the ‘black market’? How do we move black
market
activity
back into the legitimate sector?
•
To what
extent have government practices become corrupted by
non-
transparent
control over oil revenues?”
955.
The FCO
recognised that there were benefits and drawbacks with the US
and
UN models,
and suggested a “third way”:
“… a
potential middle ground in which security requirements could be
provided
by
Coalition Forces, answerable only to US leadership, and all other
functions of
administration
provided through the UN. Or the tasks of an IA could be divided up
so
that US-led
Coalition Forces retained the lead on some – eg defence, WMD,
security
sector
reform – working alongside a UN-led civil interim
administration.
“To achieve
this sort of structure would require some innovative work in
the
UN Security
Council …”
956.
The FCO
concluded that international legitimacy was crucial to many aspects
of
the interim
administration’s mission and would be very difficult to achieve
under US
leadership.
In the short term, the US-led model looked more likely to succeed,
especially
in the
areas of SSR and WMD. Wider political and economic reforms were
more likely
to endure
in the long term if the interim authority worked under UN auspices
and
maximised
the contribution of Iraqis.
957.
Comments on
the paper from the British Embassy Amman were included
in
an annex:
“The
crucial issue here is timing. If the US or UN were to control the
initial period of
post-conflict
transition, their presence is likely to be accepted (if it brings
peace and
not a worse
situation). This stage should not be long enough for the US or the
UN
to start
expanding their duties beyond simply keeping the peace and avoiding
major
humanitarian
problems.”
958.
The Embassy
warned that the “fervour that could be whipped up” by any
US
attempt to
run major Iraqi government departments “could be enough to endanger
the
international
community’s ability to affect the process of change at all”.
Equally:
“Whilst a
UN-led authority would be undoubtedly better than a US-led one, the
UN
now has
such a tainted image in Iraq that a UN-led IA would come in for
much the
same
criticism. (The UN is felt to be under the control of the US
anyway.)”
959.
The Embassy
concluded:
“There is a
small group of Iraqis inside Iraq who could be trusted/used to
bring
about
change in a transitional phase. They would need to be bolstered by
Iraqi
professionals
willing to return from abroad.
273