The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
decisions
on force level options”.537
The meeting
was provided with three papers: a
Short-Term
Strategy, a draft of Mr Browne’s planned statement to
Parliament , and
Mr Alexander’s
letter to Mr Brown of 31 March on progress on the economic
initiatives.
915.
The Short-Term
Strategy paper considered four options for drawing down
UK
troops in
Iraq, set out the civilian and military tasks that the UK could
continue to
undertake
in each case, and assessed the impact of withdrawing from Iraq on
the
916.
The paper
suggested criteria which might be used to evaluate those options,
but
did not
attempt such an evaluation and made no recommendation on troop
withdrawals.
The
criteria for evaluation included the ability to deliver
Mr Brown’s economic initiatives
and the
provision of a secure platform for political and economic
work.
917.
The paper also
identified a number of areas in which the UK should continue
to
work in the
absence of a significant military presence in Basra. Those
included:
•
Economics.
In Baghdad, the UK had carved out a “niche role alongside
the
massive US
effort”. UK support for building Iraqi Government capacity
for
economic
policy and public finance/budget management was highly valued
by
Iraqi
officials and had given the UK a seat at the “coalition
policy-making table”,
providing
critical leverage to lobby for greater engagement by the World
Bank
and other
multilateral institutions. In Basra, Mr Brown’s economic
initiatives were
making
“real progress” under Mr Wareing’s leadership. The paper
assessed the
work to be
of high importance (because a successful economy was an
important
driver of
stability), but the UK’s impact to be “low to medium” (because of
the
programme’s
relatively small scale and the fact that real progress would
depend
on the
Iraqi Government).
•
Governance
and security/justice sector reform. Both the US and the
Iraqi
Government
valued the UK’s work to build capacity in these areas. The
work
was of
medium importance (as DFID’s projects and the FCO policing
mission
represented
“niche added value”) and the UK’s impact “medium”.
•
Pressing
for more substantive multilateral and regional engagement by
the
UN, EU, IMF
and World Bank. The work was of high importance (as
more
substantive
engagement by multilateral organisations would ease the
burden
on the US
and UK and positive regional engagement was crucial for
Iraq’s
long‑term
stability) and the UK’s impact also “high” (as it had more leverage
with
the EU, UN
and World Bank than the US).
918.
At the
meeting, Mr Brown recognised that it was difficult to take
firm decisions on
longer-term
options until there was a clearer assessment of events in
Basra.539
It
was
537
Paper
Cabinet Office, 31 March 2008, ‘Iraq’.
538
Paper FCO,
March 2008, ‘Iraq: The Short Term’.
539
Minutes, 1
April 2008, NSID(OD) meeting.
344