The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
137.
Officials
explained that operational planning was constrained by
the
continuing
absence of an overall framework for post-conflict
Iraq.
138.
Section 3.6
describes the range of advice prepared for Mr Blair’s meeting
with
President
Bush on 31 January.
139.
Advice on
post-conflict issues was included in a number of documents
prepared
separately
by the FCO, the MOD, the Cabinet Office and DFID.
140.
Briefing
prepared by the FCO included in its list of objectives: “To
convince
President
Bush … the US needs to pay much more attention, quickly, to
planning on
‘day after’
issues; and that the UN needs to be central to it.”74
Key
messages included:
“– Our
officials … need agreement from us [Mr Blair and President
Bush] on overall
framework
to carry out operational planning.
– Coalition
needs an overall ‘winning concept’. Should embrace both
military
action and
‘day-after’ administration in Iraq. Would be pointless and
damaging
to win
war and lose peace.
– Would be
irresponsible to abandon Iraq quickly after toppling Saddam. Risk
of
civil war
would be real. And Iraq’s neighbours would get dragged in,
creating
instability
in the whole region.
– We must
leave Iraq and region better off after our intervention. As well
as
disposing
of Iraq’s WMD and its oppressive security forces that means
presiding
over wide
political and economic reforms. Will take time to introduce and
take
root, and
will go beyond a military occupation. So international community is
in
for long
haul.
– All the
evidence from the region suggests that Coalition forces will not be
seen
as
liberators for long, if at all. Our motives are regarded with huge
suspicion.
The Iraqis,
including those in exile, (and the Arabs more generally) want us
gone
quickly.
Our occupation and administration of Iraq will become more
unpopular
and its
lawfulness more debatable, the longer it continues.
– Blunt
fact is that in those circumstances any reforms are unlikely to
stick.
Iraqis will
need legitimate international presence holding the ring while
they
themselves
set up new, Iraqi, structures. Can’t foist these on them.
Iraqi
opposition
groups can be involved but should not be parachuted into
power.
– So we
should plan to keep period of government by military Coalition as
short as
possible,
and introduce quickly an international administration with UN
blessing.
74
Paper
Middle East Department, 30 January 2003, ‘Prime Minister’s visit to
Camp David,
31 January: Iraq’.
334