The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
back to an
internationally approved and organised situation for Iraq, with the
United
Nations
playing its proper part in it. And secondly, they wanted to
minimise the overall
…
geopolitical damage that had been done by the invasion of
Iraq.”231
358.
On 15 May, Mr
de Villepin spoke to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
House
of Commons,
which was visiting Paris.232
Reporting
on his “tirade”, the British Embassy
Paris
commented “the bottom line is that France will not veto, but may
well abstain if
there are
not major changes to the current draft”.
359.
Mr Blair and
President Bush spoke the following day.233
Action in the
UN seemed
to be going
well and Mr Blair proposed two areas (a UN “Special Representative”
rather
than
“Special Co-ordinator”; and greater transparency of oil sales) in
which the resolution
might be
amended if tactically necessary.
360.
During the
conversation, Mr Blair confirmed that Mr Sawers was working
closely
with
Ambassador Bremer. Although there were many differences between
Basra and
Baghdad, Mr
Blair offered “whatever help we could give for
Baghdad”.
361.
On 16 May, CPA
Order No.1 ‘de-Ba’athification of Iraqi Society’ was issued. It
was
Ambassador
Bremer’s first formal act as Head of the CPA.234
The UK’s
role in the development and implementation of de-Ba’athification
policy is
described
in detail in Section 11.1.
Many
witnesses told the Inquiry that the extent of the CPA’s
de-Ba’athification policy had
significant
implications.
Mr Straw
described the twin decisions to de-Ba’athify and disband the
military as
“the single
greatest errors that were made post-war”.235
He accepted
that a degree of
de‑Ba’athification
was required but argued that that “what we had wanted was a
greater
level of
intelligence applied, distinguishing between who was in the Ba’ath
Party because
they had to
be because they wanted to make a living, and who was in the Ba’ath
Party
because
they were enthusiasts”.
Mr Blair
told the Inquiry:
“I’m not
sure in my own mind about this even now … it was going to be really
difficult
to prevent
a certain level of de-Ba’athification. The question is: should it
have gone
down to the
level it did? … I got on to President Bush pretty much straight
away on
this … as a
result of the conversation I had with George Bush, literally days
after this,
they were
then scaling back. They scaled back further, and in respect of the
army,
they were
always intending to re-recruit and then they corrected this pension
problem
that they
had with the army pretty quickly.”236
231
Public
hearing, 15 December 2009 page 34.
232
Telegram
224 Paris to FCO London, 15 May 2003, ‘Iraq: Villepin Tirade to the
FAC Part 1’.
233
Letter
Cannon to McDonald, 16 May 2003, ‘Iraq: Prime Minister’s
Conversation with Bush, 16 May’.
234
Bremer LP
III & McConnell M. My Year in
Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. Threshold,
2006.
235
Public
hearing, 8 February 2010, pages 102 and 116-118.
236
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, pages 200-201.
194