The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
311.
The “Key
Judgements” in the February Assessment included:
“I. The
threat from Al Qaida will increase at the onset of any military
action against
Iraq. They
will target Coalition forces and other Western interests in the
Middle
East.
Attacks against Western interests elsewhere are also likely,
especially in
the US and
UK for maximum impact. The worldwide threat from other
Islamist
terrorist
groups and individuals will increase significantly.
…
III. Al
Qaida associated terrorists in Iraq and in the Kurdish Autonomous
Zone
in Northern
Iraq could conduct attacks against Coalition forces and
interests
during, or
in the aftermath of, war with Iraq.”
312.
An updated
Assessment, produced on 12 March, judged that: “Senior Al
Qaida
associated
terrorists may have established sleeper cells in Iraq, to be
activated during
a Coalition
occupation.”154
313.
Treasury
briefing for Mr Brown on 11 February warned of the
possibility
of
substantial pressure on the UK to make a disproportionate
contribution to
post‑conflict
Iraq.
314.
On 11
February, Treasury officials invited Mr Brown’s views on their
“preliminary
thinking”
on the Treasury’s interests in a post-Saddam Hussein
Iraq.155
The
paper
drew on
earlier Treasury work in September 2002 on the implications of war
in Iraq
for the
global, regional and Iraqi economies.156
Officials
advised that the Treasury’s
main
interest was to ensure Iraq’s prosperity and stability while
sharing fairly the cost
of
achieving that outcome. The cost was difficult to predict but
“potentially massive”.
It comprised:
•
peacekeeping
costs; the peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia had
numbered
40,000 at
its peak, with the cost to the UK of the Kosovo Force (KFOR)
reaching
£325m in
1999/2000. Iraq would probably need more troops, given its ethnic
and
religious
tensions, the likelihood of score-settling and its sheer
size;
•
humanitarian
expenditure;
•
environmental
costs arising, for example, from the use of WMD or oil
fires;
•
“general
reconstruction”, which could cost between US$1.5bn and US$8bn
a
year
(including humanitarian costs); and
•
economic
stabilisation, through an IMF programme.
154
JIC
Assessment, 12 March 2003, ‘International Terrorism: War with Iraq:
Update’.
155
Minute
Treasury [junior official] to Chancellor, 11 February 2003, ‘HMT
policy on post-Saddam Iraq’
attaching
Paper CEP/HMT, [undated], ‘What should HMT policy be on post-war
Iraq?’
156
Email
[Treasury junior official] to Bowman, 6 September 2002, ‘What would
be the economic impact of a
war in
Iraq?’ attaching Paper HMT, September 2002, ‘What would be the
economic impact of war in Iraq?’
364