6.4 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, mid-2001
to January 2003
963.
The FCO
described the paper as a “living document” and highlighted
some
emerging
themes, including the need:
•
to put SSR
at the centre of post-conflict work, unlike in
Afghanistan;
•
to
establish a UK working group to start the detailed assessment of “a
number
of
complicated issues” that would allow the UK to engage with the US
and UK
academics
on the issue;
•
to involve
the new Iraqi administration in the process as early as
possible;
•
to find out
more about the judiciary and the civilian police; and
•
for
Ministers to decide the level of engagement “given our limited and
stretched
resources”.
964.
The record of
the AHGI on 13 December stated that a Whitehall working group
on
SSR had
been established and could undertake further work.462
965.
The Government
has been unable to supply evidence of activity by the
SSR
working
group.
966.
The FCO paper
on Islamism in Iraq, written by DSI, described Iraq as “a
relatively
secular
state”, but warned:
“Many of
the models for possible future governments, whether representative
or
even
democratic, proposed by commentators, are broadly secular too. This
may be
the
preferred outcome, but there is a risk we underplay the importance
of Islamic
forces in
Iraq.
“In any
period of post-Saddam political instability, it is likely groups
will be looking
for
identities and ideologies on which to base movements. Ba’athism
will have
been
largely discredited. Communism is no longer the force it once was
in Iraq.
Islamism,
ethnicity and nationalism are obvious alternatives. This paper
considers
the
possibility that Islamism emerges as one of the main organising
principles for
967.
The paper
stated that it was “almost certain that political Islam would
become more
prominent
in post-Saddam Iraq” and drew four “tentative
conclusions”:
•
Many
popular groupings emerging after Saddam Hussein were likely to
have
religious
agendas, some overtly anti-Western.
•
The
emergence of such groups was not inconsistent with moves towards
more
representative
or democratic government.
462
Minute Dodd
to Manning, 19 December 2002, ‘Ad Hoc Group on Iraq’.
463
Paper DSI,
[undated], ‘Islamism in Iraq’.
275