The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
463.
Officials
recommended that:
“… we plan
at this stage to do all four of these activities:
a) Support
humanitarian needs nationally and in the region, primarily
through
the UN and
Red Cross/Red Crescent movement
b) Work
alongside and influence humanitarian action by US DART
teams
c) Work
alongside the UK military
d)
Undertake DFID bilateral humanitarian action.
“These
activities are complementary and doing them all could maximise our
impact
– working
in an exemplary way in a part of the country under UK military
control
(though
activities b), c) and d) will have greater influence if we are
co-operating
closely
with the UN and US delivery of assistance elsewhere in the country
(through
activities
a) and b)).”
464.
Officials also
recommended a number of “pre-deployment steps which we
need
to initiate
now to be adequately prepared to play these roles
effectively”:
•
establishing
a forward base in Kuwait to allow DFID to build its capacity
for
deployment
into Iraq, potentially including a field presence in a UK military
AOR
and/or
Baghdad;
•
deployment
of a Humanitarian Adviser to Amman to liaise and work
with
humanitarian
partners;
•
regional
assessment missions, including to Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey and
Iran;
•
deployment
of a Civil-Military Humanitarian Adviser to 1 (UK) Div in Kuwait
and
regular
visits to CENTCOM in Qatar; and
•
secondments
to support humanitarian co-ordination, initially to the
UN
Humanitarian
Information Centre (HIC) in Cyprus.
465.
Officials
warned Ms Short:
“If we do
not have people and assets in place and ready in time, we will not
be
able to
respond quickly and as may be needed. Once conflict has begun
logistical
constraints
will make it extremely difficult to respond unless we have put
the
preparations
in place.”
466.
Officials
advised that the US was planning to carry out humanitarian work
across
Iraq,
including in the South. If the UK did not agree with that approach,
it would need
to convince
the US at “very senior level” that it should change its plans and
that the UK
was
adequately resourced to play an exemplary role, which was not
currently the case.
It might be
more realistic to supplement and influence US efforts in a UK
sector. Officials
recommended
working alongside the US DART field office in Kuwait, “to protect
and
supplement
the proposed exemplary role for UK humanitarian
action”.
390