The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
627.
The Cabinet
Office Annotated Agenda for the meeting of the AHMGIR
on
18 December
noted that:
“The
capture of Saddam Hussein, though important politically, is
unlikely to improve
the
security situation in the short-term. Saddam’s supporters may not
give up easily
and foreign
fighters have different motivations.”354
628.
Despite the
recent fall in the number of security incidents, the agenda noted
that
“attacks on
Iraqi security forces, particularly on police stations, continue”
although
MND(SE)
remained relatively quiet.
629.
The Annotated
Agenda recorded that the CPA was taking forward ideas for
a
National
Reconciliation Strategy.
630.
Following the
capture of Saddam, this was:
“… a
determined effort by the CPA and the Iraqi Interim Administration
to engage
Sunni
leaders, alongside establishment of targeted job creation schemes
and more
flexible
implementation of the de-Ba’athification policy.”
631.
Responsibility
for de-Ba’athification had been formally handed to the
Governing
Council on
5 November in CPA Memorandum No.7 (see Section 11.1 for further
details).
632.
Cabinet Office
officials wrote that an impediment to Iraqi engagement in
the
15 November
Agreement was the further intervention of Grand Ayatollah
al-Sistani.
He had
made clear his preference for the holding of direct elections
rather than caucus
elections
to the Transitional Assembly, although he had not gone so far as to
issue a
fatwa.
Instead, he
had asked for UN views on the feasibility of direct
elections.
633.
The Cabinet
Office judged that the Iraqiisation of security was “highly
ambitious”
based on
the intention to withdraw Coalition military from cities, and for
the Iraqi police to
deal with
terrorism, by April 2004.
634.
The Annotated
Agenda also discussed the role of women in Iraq, observing
that
all 10
members of the committee that would draft the TAL were male.
Cabinet Office
officials
proposed that Ministers should agree to lobby Washington and the
CPA for a
quota of 25
percent female representation in every caucus nominating
individuals to the
TLA. The
Agenda said that Iraqi women accounted for 60 percent of the total
population.
635.
Ministers were
also told that Mr Annan had appointed Mr Ross Mountain to
be his
Acting
Special Representative to Iraq. He would be based outside Iraq,
travelling in as
security
permitted.
354 Annotated
Agenda, 17 December 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
312