The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
“Agreement
with US on Phase IV assumptions (IPU in hand)”; and
•
“Finalisation
of military campaign objectives (Cabinet Office, in
hand)”.
871.
Separate MOD
advice to Mr Hoon stated that DFID expected to
distribute
humanitarian
relief through IOs and NGOs that would not be present until
the
environment
was benign.364
UK forces
could find themselves in control of part of Iraq,
including
Basra, before IOs and NGOs were willing to enter the country. Ms
Short’s
agreement
that DFID should take part in planning to manage the consequences
of war
was
welcome, but DFID’s likely plan was to distribute relief wherever
there was a need,
not just in
the UK AO. There was a danger that, even with DFID engagement, UK
troops
would lack
the resources to deal with the humanitarian difficulties they
faced. Officials
recommended
that the only way to be sure UK forces had access to the
humanitarian
supplies
they might need was for DFID to channel its funding directly
through the
military.
872.
Section 13.1
describes the subsequent exchange between the MOD, DFID
and
the
Treasury on how to fund delivery of humanitarian assistance in the
UK’s AO.
873.
On 9 March,
Ms Short threatened to resign from the Government if the
UK
took
military action against Iraq without UN authorisation.
874.
In an
interview for BBC Radio
4 on 9 March, Ms
Short said she would resign from
the
Government if the UK took military action against Iraq without UN
authority.365
Asked
whether she
thought Mr Blair had acted “recklessly”, Ms Short described
the situation as
“extraordinarily
reckless”. She continued:
“… what
worries me is that we’ve got the old spin back and we have
detailed
discussions
either personally or in the Cabinet and then the spin the next
day
is: ‘we’re
ready for war’ …
“If it
takes another month or so, that is fine … And I think you could get
a world
where we
see the UN in authority … proper care for the people of Iraq,
because at
the moment
the preparations to care for the humanitarian aftermath of any
military
conflict
are not properly in place.
“And
there’s another major legal point – if there isn’t a UN mandate for
the
reconstruction
of Iraq … [i]t will in international law be an occupying army and
won’t
have the
authority to make changes in the administrative arrangements in
Iraq.”
875.
In her memoir,
Ms Short wrote that when she arrived in DFID on 11
March,
Mr Chakrabarti
and senior officials had obviously been asked by No.10 to find out
what
364
Minute MOD
D/Sec to PS/Secretary of State [MOD], 7 March 2003, ‘OP Telic: DFID
involvement and
the funding
of immediate humanitarian assistance’.
365
BBC
News, 10 March
2003, Clare Short
Interview.
470