9.1  |  March to 22 May 2003

257.  A consultative conference took place in Baghdad on 28 April.140 It was not the

“Baghdad Conference” to create the IIA that the UK had envisaged.

258.  Mr Mike O’Brien, FCO Minister of State for the Middle East, and Mr Chilcott

attended for the UK. Mr O’Brien reported that the US had its own vision of how the IIA

would shape up and wanted as little as possible to come out of the conference itself.

The real political process would begin after the conference when Mr Zalmay Khalilzad,

US Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis, was due to meet with prominent Iraqi political

leaders. These meetings were likely to frame the shape and composition of the IIA.

The UK was not in the loop. Mr O’Brien attributed that to the UK’s failure to have

someone sufficiently senior working with the US in Iraq.

259.  In his report to Mr Straw, Mr O’Brien referred to ORHA as “the only game in town”

and recommended that a senior UK official should be posted to it in Baghdad to take an

active role in policy formation.

260.  Mr O’Brien’s Assistant Private Secretary separately reported a meeting between

Mr O’Brien and Air Marshal Brian Burridge, the UK National Contingent Commander who

was collocated with CENTCOM in Qatar, whilst the former was in transit to Baghdad.141

He reported that:

“Burridge thought ORHA as an organisation was … flawed – it was random, erratic,

slow and lacked both cultural awareness and structural planning. However he

acknowledged that it was the only show in town and that we had to work with it,

regardless of its faults.”

261.  RAND142 assessed in 2008 that:

“The possibility of a quick transfer to Iraqi governance remained in play in the

immediate aftermath of the regime’s fall. Although Garner told Kurdish leaders …

that they would not be allowed to set up an interim government, he made a number

of statements that appeared to downplay ORHA’s central role in the governance

of Iraq … The consultations … appeared to be the first two steps of three to the

formation of a temporary Iraqi government … the 300 representatives at the

Baghdad Conference … called for another, larger conference in a month’s time to

select the postwar transitional government.”143

140  Minute O’Brien to Foreign Secretary, 1 May 2003, ‘Central Iraq Conference: Are we properly engaged?’

141  Telegram 87 Doha to FCO London, 29 April 2003, ‘Baghdad Conference: Mr O’Brien’s call on Air

Marshall [sic] Burridge’.

142  The RAND Corporation is a US research organisation/think tank which focuses on defence issues.

143  Bensahel N, Oliker O, Crane K, Brennan RR Jr, Gregg HS, Sullivan T & Rathmell A. After Saddam:

Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq. RAND Corporation, 2008.

173