6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
352.
Mr Hoon
told the Inquiry:
“… we were
concerned that the planning for the aftermath was not as detailed
and
as
comprehensive as we would have liked. Indeed, in a visit to the
Pentagon in …
February, I
took with me a list of the things that we hoped that the United
States
would take
account of.”169
“… they
welcomed the suggestions that we were making, but … I accept that
not all
of those
items on my list were followed up and followed up in the timescale
that we
expected”.
354.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit discussed post-conflict planning with Mr Frank Miller,
NSC Senior
Director
for Defense Policy and Arms Control, on 12 February. Sir Kevin was
told that
ORHA was
responsible for implementation only; policy remained with the
NSC-led
inter-agency
group. Sir Kevin stressed the importance of UK involvement in both
strands
but was
informed that the UK knew all there was to know: US planning was
thin, but was
all the
system could cope with at that point.170
355.
US
officials’ evidence to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on
11 February
revealed “enormous uncertainties” around US post-conflict
plans.
356.
The
Committee’s response was one of “incredulity”.
357.
Sir David
Manning emphasised to officials in No.10 and the Cabinet
Office
the need to
keep pressing the US for the work to be done.
358.
On 11
February, Mr Marc Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for
Political
Affairs,
and Mr Douglas Feith, US Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, gave evidence
on US
post-conflict plans to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.171
359.
The British
Embassy Washington reported that the message to the
Foreign
Relations
Committee was “liberation not occupation”, with an assurance that
the US did
not want to
control Iraq’s economic resources.
360.
The Embassy
highlighted the degree of uncertainty surrounding US
plans:
“In the
ensuing discussion, Feith said that military occupation could last
two years.
Both
admitted to ‘enormous uncertainties’. They said that they did not
know how the
Iraqi oil
industry would be managed, who would cover the costs of oil
installation
reconstruction,
or how the detailed transition to a democratic Iraq would
operate.
169
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, pages 82-83.
170
Minute
Tebbit, 13 February 2003, ‘Note for File: Phone Call with Frank
Miller – 12 February’.
171
Telegram
196 Washington to FCO London, 12 February 2003, ‘Iraq “Day After”:
US Makes Initial
Planning
Public’.
371