The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
808.
The FCO
described the ‘UK overall plan for Phase IV’, prepared by the
IPU
and shown
to Mr Blair on 7 March, as “work in progress”.
809.
The plan
stated that the US was leading on Phase IV planning and that
UK
personnel
were well placed to influence that work.
810.
It listed
three sets of decisions that Ministers needed to take
either
immediately,
before the conflict began or very soon after the start of
hostilities.
811.
The plan
contained little detail on post-conflict tasks and no new
material
on sectorisation,
but warned:
“… we need
to be clear that if we take on leadership of a military
sector,
previous
deployments of this type suggest that we are likely to inherit
wider
responsibilities
than purely security.”
812.
Officials
recommended postponing decisions on the extent of the
UK’s
post‑conflict
commitment until after the start of hostilities.
813.
The ‘UK
overall plan for Phase IV’ was shown to Mr Blair on 7
March.343
Much
of
the plan,
prepared by the IPU, was drawn from the annotated agenda prepared
for the
meeting on
6 March.
814.
A letter from
Mr Straw’s Private Office stated that the plan
was:
“… work in
progress. A full plan could say quite a lot more about the shape of
civilian
government,
the treatment of war criminals and other matters, most of which we
are
815.
The IPU
described Phase IV as “the military term for the part of the plan
that takes
place after
the fighting has finished” and stated: “In practice Phase IV starts
the moment
Coalition
forces enter Iraq.”345
“The US is
leading on post-conflict or Phase IV planning. The military part in
this is
being led
by CENTCOM’s Land Component Headquarters, and the civil piece by
its
Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). We have
military
officers
and officials seconded to both. They are well placed to influence
planning.
The UN is
also carrying out contingency planning. We are tracking that as
well.
There are
decisions for Ministers to take about the level of UK engagement in
Phase
IV and key
points on which to influence US planning.”
343
Minute
Rycroft to Prime Minister, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Weekend
Papers’.
344
Letter Owen
to Rycroft, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Phase IV’.
345
Paper Iraq
Planning Unit, 7 March 2003, ‘The UK overall plan for Phase
IV’.
458