9.1 |
March to 22 May 2003
203.
Maj Gen Cross
also told the Inquiry:
“I’m well
aware of the debate that went on about the legality and a
reluctance to be
seen at
this stage to be endorsing ORHA or formally placing people within
ORHA on
the basis
that we, the UK, would become liable under the umbrella of
international
law and so
forth if we were a part of it. So at that stage, the correspondence
that
I have
seen coming out of DFID, coming out of the FCO, coming out of the
MOD,
was a
recognition that ORHA needed far more than it had, but not yet an
agreement
that we,
the UK, should be prepared to fill any of those
slots.”102
204.
Mr Edward
Chaplin, FCO Director Middle East and North Africa, attended
a
regional
meeting set up by ORHA in Nasiriyah on 15 April to begin a dialogue
with
205.
On the flight
home he wrote to his counterpart in the US State
Department
enclosing
two papers: ‘Setting up the Iraqi Interim Authority: Issues for
Discussion’ and a
longer
paper on the UK’s broader views on the creation, composition and
powers of the
IIA and its
relationship with ORHA.
206.
The first
paper set out the UK’s assumption that a national conference would
be
needed to
set up the IIA and establish constitutional review and electoral
processes. The
paper
emphasised the need for selection of representatives to be
Iraqi-led. While the UK
wanted to
set up an IIA as soon as possible, they wanted to give the process
enough
time to
make the Iraqi people feel they had been properly consulted. The
key tasks for
the so
called “Baghdad conference” were to:
•
establish
the IIA;
•
set up
processes for the review of the Constitution; and
•
create
processes for the preparation of elections.
207.
The first
paper stated that the way in which members of the IIA would be
selected
was
crucial, arguing that the individuals needed to be technocrats with
no political
affiliations,
and suggesting ways in which the conference could appoint IIA
members.
The second
paper set out the process the UK envisaged would be used to form a
new
representative
government for Iraq, replicating the same steps set out in the
paper
prepared
for Mr Straw to use in discussion with Secretary Powell on 3
April.
208.
On 16 April,
the European Council met in Athens.104
Mr Blair
represented the UK.
A private
bilateral meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Annan was organised in
the margins
of the main
event.
102
Public
hearing, 7 December 2009, page 28.
103
Letter
Chaplin to Crocker, 17 April 2003, ‘Setting up the Iraqi Interim
Authority: Issues for Discussion’
attaching
Paper FCO, 2 April 2003, ‘Post conflict Iraq: Iraqi interim
authority’.
104
Letter
Rycroft to McDonald, 16 April 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s Meeting
with UN Secretary General,
Athens, 16
April’.
163