6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
the US “and
appears gradually to be getting through”. He suggested that in any
reply
to
Mr Haynes’s letter, the Attorney General “might refer briefly
to this matter, and to our
wish to
remain in close contact on legal issues”.
673.
On 27
February, DFID officials had sought Ms Short’s guidance on “the
scope
of DFID
co-operation with UK (and potentially other) military forces in
support of UK
government
objectives in a complex humanitarian emergency”.297
Officials
explained
that the
approach adopted in Kosovo and developed in Afghanistan, but not
universally
accepted as
good practice in DFID, provided for:
•
UK and/or
allied military forces to assist vulnerable populations directly
when
there was
insufficient humanitarian capacity to meet their
needs;
•
funding of
military QIPs “which contribute to the security and stability
of
the
environment thus facilitating humanitarian, recovery and
development
programmes
and enabling legitimate political developments to take
root”;
•
secondment
of humanitarian specialists to UK military forces; and
•
“the
flexibility to decide … the degree of co-operation with combatant
military
forces
whose operation may, or may not, be endorsed by the
UN”.
674.
Ms Short
replied: “Thanks – I am minded to maintain our position. We must
check
if [there
are] any legal implications.”298
675.
On 28
February, a junior DFID official advised:
“I cannot
see any International Development Act problems here. Section 3 of
the
Act … says:
‘The SofS [Secretary of State] may provide any person or body
with
assistance
for the purpose of alleviating the effects of a natural or
man-made
disaster or
other emergency on the population of one or more countries
outside
the UK’.
“… [W]hich
pretty much allows you to do what you like, so long as it is for
the
purpose of
alleviating the effects of a disaster or emergency on the
population of a
country
outside the UK.
“This is
understood as applying pretty much to the immediate effects of
an
emergency,
and not to long term rehabilitation or development … Once you
move
into
development assistance you must be motivated by poverty reduction.
But
you can
still use soldiers to provide assistance if that is the best way of
reducing
297
Minute DFID
[junior official] to PS/Secretary of State [DFID], 27 February
2003, ‘Civil Military Relations
in Complex
Emergencies – DFID Position’.
298
Manuscript
comment Short, 27 February 2003, on Minute DFID [junior official]
to PS/Secretary of State
[DFID], 27
February 2003, ‘Civil Military Relations in Complex Emergencies –
DFID Position’.
299
Email [DFID
junior official] to Mosselmans, 28 February 2003, ‘Civil Military
Relations in Complex
Emergencies
– DFID Position’.
431