6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
it would
take to make her stay on as International Development
Secretary.366
After
discussion,
they agreed that the conditions were:
“1. Publish
Road Map [for the Middle East]
2. Absolute
requirement UN mandate for reconstruction
3. UN
mandate for military action.”
876.
Mr Chakrabarti
wrote to Sir Andrew Turnbull later on 11 March to explain
Ms
Short’s
position and to recommend “more frequent and systematic discussion
of these
issues
between senior Ministers” and between Mr Blair and Ms Short,
who needed
reassurance
that her concerns would be taken fully into account.
Mr Chakrabarti
understood
that Mr Blair might ask senior Ministers to meet more
regularly if conflict
started,
but advised starting these meetings sooner, “given the scale and
significance
of the
decisions being taken”.367
877.
Sir Andrew
Turnbull informed officials in No.10 and the Cabinet Office of
revised
arrangements
for Ministerial meetings on 18 March.
878.
On 10 March,
the House of Commons International Development
Committee
published
its Report Preparing
for the Humanitarian Consequences of Possible Military
Action Against
Iraq. The
Committee stated: “We are not yet convinced that there is,
to
use the
Prime Minister’s words, ‘a humanitarian plan that is every bit as
viable and well
worked out
as a military plan’.”368
The
Committee advised: “it is essential that in planning
for the
possible humanitarian consequences of military action the worst
case scenario,
involving
ethnic conflict, is considered”.369
The
Committee recommended that DFID issue
a statement
immediately outlining its humanitarian contingency
plans.
879.
Ms Short’s
statement on 13 March is described later in this
Section.
880.
Mr Straw
made a statement on Iraq to the House of Commons on 10
March,
described
in more detail in Section 3.8, in which he addressed the
potential
consequences
of military action. Mr Straw stated that the international
community would
have “a
duty to build a secure, prosperous future for the Iraqi people”. In
his meeting
with
Mr Annan on 6 March, he had proposed “that the UN should take
the lead role in
co-ordinating
international efforts to rebuild Iraq, and that they should be
underpinned
by a
clear UN mandate”.370
366
Short
C. An
Honourable Deception: New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of
Power. The Free
Press, 2004.
367
Letter
Chakrabarti to Turnbull, 11 March 2003, ‘Iraq’.
368
Fourth
Report from the International Development Committee, Session
2002-2003, Preparing
for the
Humanitarian
Consequences of Possible Military Action Against
Iraq, HC 444-I,
page 5.
369
Fourth
Report from the International Development Committee, Session
2002-2003, Preparing
for the
Humanitarian
Consequences of Possible Military Action Against
Iraq, HC 444-I,
page 17.
370
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 10 March
2003, column 23.
471