The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Sir Jeremy Greenstock described to the Inquiry the stalemate the Coalition had faced

on the political process.304 Ambassador Bremer had not wanted elections to take place

without constitutional principles being laid down to govern them; Grand Ayatollah al-

Sistani had not wanted Iraq’s Constitution to be written by or influenced by non-Iraqis.

Sir Jeremy described his suggestion that:

“… when there was a chicken and egg problem, one of the ways to get through it is

to design a double circuit … two chickens, two eggs, it became known as, with some

humour and disbelief on the American side … we designed a process of drawing up

some preliminary constitutional principles through an administrative law leading to a

first round of elections, after which there would be the writing of a proper Constitution

by elected officials, leading to a second round of elections under that Constitution.

“The Americans … thought I was talking rubbish, but the Iraqis immediately

understood what I was talking about, which was the point of my proposing it … And

that was the heart of the 15 November agreement.”

Sir David Richmond told the Inquiry:

“Undoubtedly Jeremy’s influence was very important in the change of direction of

the political process which led to the 15th November agreement. It is a dreadful

phrase [two chickens two eggs], but actually it was a very clever idea and became in

essence the policy that was then followed.”305

Sir David said that Ambassador Bremer’s Seven Step Plan:

“… had really come unstuck. It wasn’t a bad plan at all. It was almost a classic way of

going about these things, but it had come unstuck largely because of the opposition

of Sistani to certain aspects of that plan. Although we were … perhaps slow to realise

that they had hit an insurmountable obstacle and there was a lot of time lost, certainly

by the middle or end of October there was a realisation that we were going to have to

come up with a plan B …”

“A plan was being developed and Bremer went back to Washington around about

13th or 12th November … He came back with what became the 15th November

agreement. There were certain aspects of it which we were expecting, including the

idea that there might be some interim Constitution … We were certainly expecting an

end date, although I think we were expecting one a little later than 30th June, but I

think we – certainly I was expecting that there would be elections before we handed

over. We would handover to an elected interim government. It was a surprise and

shock to me to discover when Bremer came back from Washington that this was not

the case. Now I don’t know – this decision had clearly been taken in Washington by

the people in Washington. It was not what the CPA had been expecting. I don’t know

to what extent the British Government was involved in that decision to do things in a

different way. I imagine they were, but I don’t know.”306

304 Public hearing, 15 December 2009, pages 76-78; Private hearing, 26 May 2010, page 57.

305 Public hearing, 26 January 2011, page 23.

306 Public hearing, 26 January 2011, page 66.

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