The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
75.
UK
participants commented on the small amount of time left to
prepare
post‑conflict
plans.
76.
On 22 January,
Mr Chaplin led an FCO/MOD/DFID delegation to Washington
for
talks on
post-conflict planning with the NSC, State Department, DoD, USAID
and an
Australian
delegation.
77.
The British
Embassy summarised the outcome:
“Some
progress in persuading the Administration of the merits of a UN
role – but
NSC advise
that this will need Prime Minister/Bush discussions to
resolve.
“Overall,
US Day After planning is still lagging far behind military
planning. But
they have
agreed to two working groups: on the UN dimension; and on
economic
reconstruction
issues. Experts will stay in touch on humanitarian
co-ordination,
bringing
war criminals to justice, and the legality of any international
presence
78.
The Embassy
also reported “confusion” over how the decision to establish
ORHA,
operating
out of DoD alongside JTF-4, would work in practice.
79.
On
de-Ba’athification, the Embassy reported that Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad,
NSC Senior
Director and Ambassador at large to the Iraqi Opposition, had
stated that,
after
Saddam Hussein’s departure, top officials in Iraqi ministries
should be replaced by
“internationals”,
who would rely as much as possible on remaining Iraqi personnel
not
tainted by
the former regime.
80.
Sir
Christopher Meyer, British Ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003,
told the
Inquiry
that, in January 2003, a contact in the NSC informed
him:
“… we are
going to have to get rid of the top people, Saddam’s henchmen, but
we
can’t
de-Ba’athify completely, otherwise there will be no administration
in Iraq and no
school
teachers and no nothing and we are going to need some of these
people”.44
81.
Mr Chaplin,
Mr Lee and Ms Miller produced supplementary reports for
their
respective
Secretaries of State.
82.
Mr Chaplin
informed Mr Straw that the talks had gone “better than
expected”, but
had
revealed that, “as we expected, apart from on humanitarian relief
and immediate
post-conflict
reconstruction, the US have not yet made much progress on a lot of
the
day-after
agenda. Most of the issues have not yet gone to
principals.”45
The US
“seemed
very
confident that Coalition forces would have the right in
international law to occupy
and
administer Iraq after a conflict”, which was not the view of FCO
lawyers.
43
Telegram 89
Washington to FCO London, 23 January 2003, ‘Iraq: US/UK/Australia
Consultations on Day
After
Issues: 22 January 2003’.
44
Public
hearing, 26 November 2009, page 98.
45
Minute
Chaplin to Secretary of State [FCO], 22 January 2003, ‘Iraq:
“day-after” issues’.
324