6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
542.
The record of
the FCO Iraq Morning Meeting on 24 February stated that
the
Rock Drill:
“… revealed
a large gap between the US’s ambitious plans and their ability
to
deliver.
Our message, that they need the Coalition and, therefore, UN
authorisation,
appeared to
hit home.”230
543.
On 25
February, Lt Gen Garner discussed the Rock Drill with Maj Gen
Cross.
According
to Maj Gen Cross, Lt Gen Garner was irritated at US colleagues’
lack of
understanding
of the scale of the task ahead, but did not seem to have tackled
the issue
with
Secretary Rumsfeld. Maj Gen Cross added that Lt Gen Garner was
being “run
pretty
ragged briefing people” and had little time to lead
ORHA.231
544.
Maj Gen Cross
told the Inquiry that:
“… [the
IPU] was very small and at that stage I sensed that we had no
thoughts of
our own
post-war.
“So when
Dominick [Chilcott] and the team came out to the Rock Drill …
all that
happened
was that people listened to this debate rather than saying, ‘This
is what
we think we
should be doing.’”232
545.
Mr Chilcott
told the Inquiry:
“We saw
ORHA for the first time in action at a Rock Drill in the United
States on
21 and
22 February, and there, I think, we realised quite how undercooked
ORHA
was as an
operation …
“… [T]hey
hadn’t been in place very long, and although Jay Garner … was
a
thoughtful,
reasonable man who had experience of Iraq … most of the people
who
he had
asked to join him were at that stage, you know, like him, former
retired
military
officers and one didn’t get a sense that this was drawing on the
best
information
and best knowledge that was available to the US administration
…
“… And I
remember at the Rock Drill thinking that the scale of the challenge
that
they are
taking on is absolutely enormous, and the time they have got to do
it is very
short and
the number of people they have got to do it who really know about
how to
run these
things is actually very small.
“… [I]t
wasn’t an organisation or an event, the Rock Drill, that inspired,
I think, any of
us with a
great deal of confidence that this was going to go
smoothly.
…
230
Minute
Tanfield to PS/PUS [FCO], 24 February 2003, ‘Iraq Morning Meeting:
Key Points’.
231
Minute
Cross to DCDS(C), 25 February 2003, ‘Bullet Points from Cross Since
VTC with DCDS(C)’.
232
Public
hearing, 7 December 2009, page 20.
405