The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
The Quds
Force: a militia
with close links to the Ba’ath Party, resembling a
Home Guard.
Tasked with defending cities and putting down internal
unrest.
•
The
Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK): an Iranian
dissident group, used to support
internal
security operations. Expected to fight with Saddam Hussein’s
forces
during an
invasion.
•
The
Directorate of General Security (DGS): a
2,700-strong paramilitary force
used for
investigating and acting on anti-state activities.
•
The
Directorate of General Intelligence (DGI): a
security organisation used
to monitor
and suppress dissident activities.
•
The
Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI): a
group of military personnel
tasked with
collecting and assessing military intelligence from abroad and
with
providing
security and counter-intelligence for the Iraqi armed
forces.
•
The Special
Security Organisation (SSO): a security
service responsible for
Saddam
Hussein’s security, for monitoring the activities and loyalty of
other units
integral to
the survival of the regime and with a key role in protection of
CBW
assets.
Members of the SSO were posted to all Republican Guard and
army
units,
tasked with shooting attempted deserters.
204.
Mr Blair
spoke to President Bush again on 25 March. They discussed the
need
to prevent
the Fedayeen establishing a foothold and to disrupt the regime’s
ability to
205.
Mr Blair
commented that progress had been good, but noted the difficulty
in
persuading
the Iraqi public that the regime would in fact collapse and the
effects of
disinformation
such as allegations about the murder of prisoners of war. The
Coalition
needed to
find ways of communicating with the Iraqi public who found it hard
to conceive
of the
Iraqi regime being supplanted. Mr Blair stated that the UK and
US did not want to
get “sucked
into street fighting, where our forces would take casualties”.
Normalisation
efforts,
such as the British patrols in Umm Qasr, were significant, as would
be the first
deliveries
of humanitarian aid.
206.
Mr Alastair
Campbell, Mr Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy,
wrote
that
Mr Blair had told President Bush:
“… there
was a chance that the whole thing would collapse quickly like a
pack of
cards, but
we shouldn’t bank on it. There would be a lot of fighting, but
eventually
people
would notice change happening … and if we handled relations with
the Iraqi
people
well, change could come quickly.” 134
133
Letter
Cannon to McDonald, 25 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
conversation with Bush, 25 March’.
134
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
36