6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
If
they see Western control becoming quasi-permanent, this too
may arouse
opposition,
probably encouraged by neighbours like Iran.”634
1429.
The
information on Iraq available to the UK Government before the
invasion
provided a
clear indication of the potential scale of the post-conflict
task.
1430.
It showed
that, in order to achieve the UK’s desired end state,
any
post‑conflict
administration would need to:
•
restore
infrastructure that had deteriorated significantly in the
decade
since 1991,
to the point where it was not capable of meeting the needs
of
the Iraqi
people;
•
administer
a state where the upper echelons of a regime that had been
in
power since
1968 had been abruptly removed and in which the
capabilities
of the
wider civil administration, many of whose employees were
members
of the
ruling party, were difficult to assess; and
•
provide
security in a country faced with a number of potential
threats,
including:
{{internecine
violence;
{{terrorism;
and
{{Iranian
interference.
1431.
In December
2002, the MOD described the post-conflict phase of
operations
as
“strategically decisive”.635
But when
the invasion began, the UK Government
was not in
a position to conclude that satisfactory plans had been drawn up
and
preparations
made to meet known post-conflict challenges and risks in Iraq
and
to mitigate
the risk of strategic failure.
1432.
Throughout
the planning process, the UK assumed that the US would
be
responsible
for preparing the post-conflict plan, that post-conflict activity
would
be
authorised by the UN Security Council, that agreement would be
reached on a
significant
post-conflict role for the UN and that international partners would
step
forward to
share the post-conflict burden.
634
Letter
Sinclair to Rycroft, 25 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Political and
Military Questions’.
635
Paper
[SPG], 13 December 2002, ‘UK Military Strategic Thinking on
Iraq’.
561