6.5 | Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to March 2003

827. The paper on issues for the first 48 hours listed 16 questions that would need

answering, but offered no answers.349 It is not clear whether the MOD or DFID had been

consulted before the document was sent to No.10.

828. The list of questions included:

• Which economic assets would need securing?

• What message should be delivered to the Iraqi people?

• What would be the most effective UK contribution to humanitarian relief?

• “With Whom Should UK Forces Work?

{{Who should be indicted (‘black list’), or detained until the situation is secure

(‘grey list’)?

{{Who can we identify in advance as Iraqis we might work with? (‘White

list’)?

{{How are these people to be identified on the ground?

{{What should be the immediate handling of members of Iraqi security

organisations? Presumably key players on the National Security Council,

the leadership of the Special Security Organisation and the Special

Republican Guard would be on a black list?

{{What about the police and regular Army?”

• How far should UK forces respond to civil unrest in urban areas?

• What assurances could be given to Russia or France about the security of their

assets?

829. The IPU paper on oil policy had been shown to Mr Straw on 28 February.350

Mr Chilcott described it as “preliminary, official-level thinking”, incorporating comments

from a range of departments. He explained to Mr Straw that the IPU intended to share

the paper with the US “in due course”.

830. In the paper, the IPU judged that it would take “enormous investment over a

number of years” to overcome decades of underinvestment in Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

That work should be a major focus for the international administration, but much of

the initial work would fall to the interim administration. It would be important to ensure

any such moves by the interim administration were “clearly in the interests of the Iraqi

economy and people” and carried out transparently, and that production was “not

pushed beyond OPEC-type depletion rates, even though this could be in the interests

of the Iraqi people”.

349 Paper [unattributed and undated], ‘The first 48 hours’.

350 Minute Chilcott to Private Secretary [FCO], 28 February 2003, ‘Iraq Day After – Oil Policy’ attaching

Paper IPU, 27 February 2003, ‘Iraq Day After – Oil’.

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