The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1339.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit told the Inquiry that “the so-called comprehensive concept
did
exist in
Whitehall, the idea that we needed to have integrated planning to
bring all the
instruments
of government to bear on the issue … and we certainly had
transparency”,
but argued
that this was very difficult to achieve quickly across different
departmental
1340.
Sir Kevin
added: “I always felt that we could not quite get other departments
to
share the
urgency that we felt in the Ministry of Defence in terms of their
own planning
with
us.”
1341.
Lord Boyce
told the Inquiry that the MOD did not consider that it was its role
to
take the
lead on post-conflict issues: “It was something that possibly
should have been
done by the
Foreign Office or even DFID.”577
1342.
Witnesses
offered differing views on whether the Government’s
performance
would have been improved by the appointment of a senior
individual
responsible
for directing post-conflict planning or the earlier introduction of
better
planning
machinery.
1343.
Asked by the
Inquiry whether UK planning could have been better,
Mr Blair
stated:
“I do
accept that, yes … If we were sitting down today, now, if we were
in a situation
of
nation-building again, I think there are changes in our approach
that certainly
should be
done …
“I think …
the real issue is what you focus on less than the structure; in
other words,
you could
say that we should have had one Minister focusing on the
pre-planning,
but I would
debate that actually, but you may conclude that … The core of
the
problem was
the focus of what that planning was.”578
1344.
Lord Turnbull
shared Mr Blair’s view that the absence of Ministerial
oversight was
not
necessarily the “real issue”.579
Asked about
the absence of an individual or body
with
overall responsibility for planning, he argued that, although there
was no “single
controlling
mind” and co-ordination should have been better, this was “not
material to
the outcome”.
1345.
Sir Suma
Chakrabarti took a different view. He told the
Inquiry:
“… it would
have been better to have had the IPU earlier, firstly, and,
secondly,
probably a
Minister, preferably of Cabinet rank … who was … the overlord
Minister
for this,
either in the Cabinet Office or in the Foreign Office … because
this was a
576
Public
hearing, 3 December 2009, pages 116-117.
577
Public
hearing, 27 January 2008, page 68.
578
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, pages 130-131.
579
Public
hearing, 25 January 2011, pages 55-56.
548