6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
widely
dispersed across Iraq, depending on how Phase III goes, because
without
successful
Phase III, Phase IV becomes harder, if not academic. The trick will
be
to be
able to regroup in a smaller area of SE Iraq once hostilities are
ended.
“I also
agree that we should be clear about our medium/long-term scale of
military
commitment.
While we are putting all we can into the war effort, we should
plan
ahead to
stay broadly within … [Strategic
Defence Review guidelines].497
“What
concerns me most is the process of transiting from a primarily
military effort
to the
civil-led longer-term humanitarian and reconstruction phase. Recent
history
does not
offer too much encouragement and we shall have to work hard to
avoid
‘dependence
culture’ on the armed forces to do things which should be for
civil
departments
– initially through aid, subsequently through Iraqi own efforts.
The
politics of
the issue do, I believe, point in the same direction. To meet the
PM’s wish
for us to
play an exemplary role, we shall need to remember that memories of
the
UK in the
region from the 1920s are not all positive, and we should make
clear our
desire to
hand over and withdraw on the right basis as early as we
can.”498
1159.
In their joint
minute, Mr Straw and Mr Hoon warned that some issues
“could
confront us
as early as next week” and invited agreement to five
propositions:
“(a) The
maximum size of task that UK forces would contribute to in the
early days
should not
exceed our overall military capability. A focus in the South-East
of
Iraq would
be reasonable.
(b) The UK
contribution to such a task in advance of a Security Council
resolution
would be
limited to the facilitation of humanitarian assistance and a
secure
environment
and the elimination of WMD.
(c) We
therefore need to agree urgently with the US a realistic
authorising Security
Council
resolution for post-conflict Iraq.
(d) We
should agree urgently a plan with the US to help us find military
partners
to enable
us to draw down and, in due course, design an exit
strategy.
(e) In
broad terms the MOD will need to draw down its scale of effort to
nearer
a third
of its commitment by the autumn.”499
497
It is not
clear whether Sir Kevin Tebbit referred to the Strategic
Defence Review or the
Defence
Planning
Assumptions. The MOD has been unable to provide a version of Sir
Kevin Tebbit’s manuscript
note
including the missing words.
498
Manuscript
comment Tebbit on Email DCMC CRISIS 04-S to CDS/PSO-S, 19 March
2003,
‘Joint Defence
and Foreign Secretaries Minute to PM on “Sectors”’.
499
Minute
Straw and Hoon to Prime Minister, 19 March 2003, ‘Iraq: UK Military
Contribution to
post-conflict
Iraq’.
517