6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
431.
The paper
warned that there was “no coherent plan of how Iraq will
be
governed
beyond the first 3 to 6 months”.
432.
On 14
February, in response to a request for a note on key messages for
use with
the US,
Mr Drummond sent Sir David Manning a paper on “winning the
peace”, cleared
433.
Mr Drummond
stated: “A satisfactory plan for post-conflict is critical to
whether we
have a
‘winning concept’.”
434.
“Victorious
Coalition forces” could expect to find an Iraq with certain
“broad
characteristics”:
•
the remains
of a command state with “some sound technical institutions,
which
should
recover with Saddam’s influence removed”;
•
a “brutal
security apparatus with the layers closest to Saddam
requiring
disbandment
and the rest substantial reform”;
•
a
“dysfunctional judicial system”;
•
large
numbers of displaced people;
•
the
majority of the population hungry should the OFF programme
collapse;
•
health,
education and other public services that had declined rapidly over
the
last
20 years;
•
damage to
key infrastructure, “perhaps less than other conflicts if the
campaign
is
quick”;
•
an
oil-dependent country with potential and the skills available to
recover quickly
if well
managed;
•
a secular
Islamic state “with potential for much greater
fundamentalism”;
•
tribal,
sectarian and, especially, ethnic divisions;
•
neighbouring
states “keen to press their interests” and a region “deeply
nervous,
if not
hostile, to a continuing US military presence in
Iraq”.
435.
It was
expected that any Iraqi welcome for the removal of Saddam Hussein
would
be short
lived:
“…
liberation will quickly become occupation … So the Coalition must
have a
clear
public plan for restoring Iraqi representative government, for the
use of oil
revenues
for the benefit of all Iraqis, and the means to bring early
benefits of change
to the
Iraqi people. This will also help with the region and those members
of the
international
community who did not support military action.
“We must
not underestimate the task. In recent years, we have had to
remove
governments
in Kosovo and East Timor and replace them with
international
198
Minute
Drummond to Manning, 14 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Winning the Peace’
attaching Paper
OD Secretariat,
11 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Post Conflict: Key Messages’.
383