The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
16.
In parallel,
Mr Brenton explained the UK’s concerns about the US draft
resolution to
Mr John
Bellinger and Mr Eliott Abrams from the US National Security
Council (NSC).8
17.
Mr Brenton
observed that:
“… the text
had not been well received in London. If that was the initial
reaction
there, then
we could expect much worse in Paris and Moscow.”
18.
On 23 March,
Mr Blair told the Ad Hoc Meeting on Iraq that “British and
American
positions
were not so far apart” on the draft resolution.9
He believed
that the US was
misreading
the implications of what UN authorisation meant and added: “It was
more
a matter
of timing than substance.”
19.
Mr Blair
concluded that the UK “needed to bring in the Russians and the
French
as well
as the Americans to resolve this issue”.
20.
Since January
2003, National Security Presidential Directive 24 had consolidated
all
US
post-conflict activity in the Department of Defense-owned Office of
Reconstruction
and
Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), headed by retired Lieutenant
General Jay
21.
On 23 March,
Major General Tim Cross, the senior UK secondee to ORHA
working
for Lt Gen
Garner, and a visiting colleague provided the Iraq Planning Unit
(IPU) with an
update
which said:
“The UN
role in the handover process [to an Iraqi Administration] is little
discussed
within
ORHA, it being understood that this is an issue for capitals, and
that
Washington
will not accept a UN flag over the whole
operation.”11
22.
The Ad Hoc
Meeting on Iraq was held at 0830 on Tuesday 25 March. At Ms
Short’s
suggestion,
Mr Blair commissioned urgent advice from the Attorney General on
the legal
framework
needed to authorise both reconstruction activity and the creation
of an IIA.12
23.
On the same
day, the Private Office of Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary,
wrote
to Mr
Matthew Rycroft, Mr Blair’s Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
with “further
urgent
advice on the size of any UK sector, the length of time of our
commitment and the
exit
strategy”.13
The advice
was:
“There is …
a substantial risk that if we fail to obtain a UNSCR, we will not
be able
to build
the Coalition under overall US leadership. We would become trapped
into
8
Telegram
378 Washington to FCO London, 22 March 2003, ‘Iraq Phase IV;
Authorising UNSCR:
US
Views’.
9
Minutes, 23
March 2003, Ad Hoc Meeting on Iraq.
10
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing
Office, 2009.
11 Minute
Cross and Goledzinowski to Chilcott, 23 March 2003, ‘ORHA Overview,
23 March 2003’.
12
Minutes, 25
March 2003, Ad Hoc Meeting on Iraq.
13
Letter Owen
to Rycroft, 25 March 2003, ‘Iraq: UK Military Contribution to
Post-Conflict Iraq’.
134