6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
784.
Although
there was no guarantee at that stage that a UN mandate along
the
lines
sought by the UK would be forthcoming, Mr Blair stated that
planning for
“medium-term
post-conflict action” should continue on the assumption that
there
would be a
UN mandate.
785.
For the
first time, Mr Blair requested a consolidated UK plan for
post-conflict
Iraq,
including the key decisions for Ministers to take.
786.
DFID and
the MOD remained unable to agree a joint approach to
UK
humanitarian
operations in the area likely to be occupied by UK
forces.
787.
After Cabinet
on 6 March, Mr Blair chaired a meeting on post-conflict
issues
with
Mr Brown, Mr Hoon, Ms Short, Baroness Symons, Sir Michael
Jay and “other
788.
The IPU
prepared an annotated agenda in consultation with other
departments.338
789.
With the
invasion possibly only weeks away, the IPU explained that US and
UK
planning
assumed that, in the “medium term after the conflict”, Coalition
Forces would
be
“re-deployed into six or seven geographical sectors in order to
provide a secure
environment
for the civil transitional administration to conduct humanitarian
assistance
and
reconstruction work”. The US expected the UK Division in Iraq to be
responsible for
a
geographical sector (see Section 6.2), which would be very
expensive and carry wider
resource
implications. The UK Division would probably be based in or near
Basra, with
the size of
its AOR depending on a number of factors, including the
permissiveness of
the
environment and the size of the Division in relation to the rest of
the Coalition.
790.
The annotated
agenda stated: “Ministers need urgently to take a view on
this
before the
military planning assumptions become a fait accompli.” Ministers
were asked:
•
Whether
they agreed that the UK did not have the resources to make
an
“exemplary”
effort in providing for basic humanitarian needs in the
area
controlled
by a UK Division. The
potential cost of making a “significant
difference”
in a UK AO likely to contain 20 percent of Iraq’s population
was
estimated
at between US$400m and US$2.4bn for the first year, depending
on
disruption
to OFF and the extent of the damage caused by conflict. That
was
“well
beyond” the financial and implementing capacity of DFID and the
MOD,
and could
become a significant medium-term commitment if the local
population
became
dependent on UK assistance. The alternative to an “exemplary
effort”
was to
“give our assistance to UN agencies and NGOs”, supplemented
by
support for
QIPs in the UK’s area.
•
To choose
between options for a medium-term post-conflict military
presence.
The Chiefs
of Staff believed it would be necessary to reduce the UK’s
military
337
Letter
Cannon to Owen, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Post-Conflict
Issues’.
338
Paper IPU,
5 March 2003, ‘Planning for the UK’s role in Iraq after
Saddam’.
451