The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
seen to
come from the White House in the US with support from the Prime
Minister’s
office in
the UK. It must be clear to everyone that Bremer had direct access
to the
President
and the Prime Minister and was not obliged to channel everything
through
[Defense
Secretary] Rumsfeld.”
32.
Sir David told
Dr Rice that when Mr Blair met President Bush he would “be
urging
quick and
decisive support of Bremer … he was in no doubt that we must now
get a grip
and very
quickly”.
33.
On 1 June,
Mr Sawers reported to the FCO on emerging thinking within the
CPA
about how
to implement plans for an IIA.12
He wrote
that: “we have been closely involved
and much of
the thinking is ours”.
34.
The sequence
of events was likely to be:
•
Creation of
a 30-strong, politically and regionally representative Political
Council,
the members
of which would propose themselves to the CPA. The
Council
would be
mainly advisory, but would have powers to appoint interim
ministers,
set up
special commissions and initiate certain projects as well the right
to be
consulted
on major policies.
•
Creation of
a Council of Interim Ministers, to ensure inter-ministry
co-ordination.
•
Commissions
created by the Political Council would make
recommendations
on specific
issues (eg a new currency, reform the legal code) to be agreed
by
the
CPA.
•
Creation of
a Constitutional Convention of between 100 and 200 members
to
prepare a
new Constitution.
35.
The idea of a
National Conference was being “kept in reserve for
now”.
36.
Mr Sawers
explained that the proposed sequence had received a “quietly
positive”
response
from the Leadership Group.13
The next
step would be to bring Mr Vieira de
Mello on
board, but “as we are now demonstrably within the terms [of] SCR
1483 that
should not
be too difficult”.
37.
After reading
Mr Sawers’ telegram, Mr Huw Llewellyn, a Legal Counsellor
in FCO
Legal
Advisers, wrote to the IPU to warn that he was not so confident
that Mr Vieira de
Mello would
be satisfied the proposals fell within the terms of resolution 1483
because:
“The
scrapping (or delay) of the conference will give him both
substantive and
presentational
problems, and I would anticipate a cautious
attitude.”14
12
Telegram
028 IraqRep to FCO London, 1 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Political
Process’.
13
The
Leadership Group was comprised of Iraqi politicians drawn from
identifiable political and regional
groups and
had been established by Gen Garner after his arrival in Baghdad. It
included both former
exiles who
had returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam, and those who had
remained in Iraq.
14
Minute
Llewellyn to Bristow, 2 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Establishment of the IIA:
John Sawers Telegram of
1 June
2003’.
212