6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
iv.
Regional
(-): A UK
Brigade in the SE sector – not UK led. UK involvement
(including
military) in a reconstruction pillar.
v.
Regional (-
-): A UK
Brigade in the SE sector – not UK led.”
795.
Mirroring the
urgency expressed in the IPU annotated agenda, the MOD
warned
that, in
the absence of settled UK policy on the scale or duration of the UK
contribution
to
post-conflict Iraq, that contribution risked being determined “by
decisions being taken
by CENTCOM
now”.
796.
The MOD
identified a number of specific concerns, including:
•
US plans
envisaged the UK having responsibility for security in one of
seven
sectors.
The UK had neither agreed formally nor challenged the US
assumption.
Nor had
other departments scoped what non-military UK contributions could
be
sustained.
The UK was “currently
at risk of taking on an unsustainable task
if there is no
further Coalition contribution to the occupation of
Iraq”.
•
If the UK
did lead a military sector, there was a risk of the UK
military
being
“intimately involved” in the civil administration, “not a role they
would
seek”.
There was “a pressing
need to identify civil capacity across the
international
civil admin effort, including to support civil administration
in
a UK military
sector”.
•
The UK was
“carrying
some risk of early humanitarian assistance failures
in the UK
AO”.
797.
The policy
considerations included:
•
the degree
to which the UK wanted to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the
US,
“a
fundamental political judgement … where are the UK’s red lines?”;
and
•
the UK’s
attitude to the future of Iraq. “Does the UK wish to become
intimately
involved in
reconstruction and civil administration? This is not a military
task …
but it will
both affect and be affected by the level of military engagement. It
will
also have
significant resource implications, across government.”
798.
The briefing
concluded with a section on the worst case:
“Much of
the above is predicated on best-case assumptions for the progress
of a
conflict
(swift, short and successful), the condition of Iraq post-conflict
(infrastructure
not greatly
damaged by fighting, limited internecine conflict) and the degree
of
international
buy-in with civil and military resources, including cash
(considerable
and UN
endorsed). The Secretary of State may wish to take the opportunity
of this
meeting to
remind his colleagues that there is at least a credible possibility
that none
of these
conditions will obtain.
455