The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
223.
On 13 July,
the Governing Council met for the first time.
224.
Ambassador
Bremer described its inauguration in his account of his year in
Iraq:
“The
choreography we had agreed upon with the UK, UN and GC members
called
for the
twenty-five Council members to gather in a building not far from
the palace …
The plan
was for the group then to constitute themselves as the Governing
Council.
(This
became known to us irreverently as the ‘immaculate conception’
option).”107
225.
Chairmanship
of the Council would rotate on a monthly basis. According to
the
RAND
report, Ambassador Bremer observed that a body that could not agree
on its own
Chairman
could hardly be ready to rule.108
226.
The Chiefs of
Staff discussed Iraq in their regular meeting on 16
July.109
In
discussion
the point was made that:
“The level
of Iraqi consent to Coalition Occupation had deteriorated and
COS
assessed
that it might be lost by the end of 04 were the current trend to
continue.
Retention
of Iraqi consent depended on an effective, culturally attuned
information
strategy to
inform local people about the progress being made on governance
and
reconstruction.
The CPA had a mature, albeit unpublished, long term strategy,
but
there was a
need to develop measures to retain consent of the middle ground
and
avoid
extremism in the short and medium term.”
227.
Cabinet Office
officials provided an Annotated Agenda for the meeting of
the
228.
Attached to
the Agenda was a copy of a document entitled ‘Authorities of
the
Governing
Council’, which had been agreed between the CPA and GC as a
description
of the
initial powers of the Council. It began:
“The
Governing Council is the principal body of the interim
administration of Iraq
called for
in Security Council Resolution 1483.”
229.
The document
set out that the CPA would be “required to consult” the GC
on
“all major
decisions and questions of policy”. The GC had “the right to set
policies and
take
decisions in cooperation with the CPA”.
230.
The Annotated
Agenda said:
•
a bare
majority of the GC members were Shia;
107
Bremer LP
III & McConnell M. My Year in
Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope.
Threshold, 2006.
108
Dobbins J,
Jones SG, Runkle B & Mohandas S. Occupying
Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional
Authority.
RAND
Corporation, 2009.
109
Minutes, 16
July 2003, Chiefs of Staff meeting.
110 Annotated
Agenda, 17 July 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation meeting
attaching Paper,
13 July 2003,
‘Annex B: Authorities of the Governing Council’.
244