9.2 | 23
May 2003 to June 2004
The RAND
report describes Mr Brahimi, assisted by Ambassadors Bremer
and Blackwill,
carrying
out a large number of consultations with members of the GC and
other notable
Iraqis,
with the aim of securing agreement on the composition of an Iraqi
Interim
After the
first person he suggested for Prime Minister was rejected by the
US, Mr Brahimi
then
suggested Dr Ayad Allawi, who was enthusiastically received. Dr
Allawi, a secular
Shia Muslim
and leader of the Iraqi National Accord (INA), had been in exile in
London
during most
of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Sir David
Richmond told the Inquiry that Mr Brahimi had made use of the
knowledge
acquired by
UK and US officials and had succeeded in:
“… widening
the base of Iraqis with whom we worked, which was very
important,
because we
were trying to hand over to a representative government. We
were
aware
Iraqis with whom we were working were not really as representative
as we
On the
choice of Prime Minister, Sir David described:
“…a meeting
going on at which various candidates were being discussed
and
Lakhdar
Brahimi was essentially saying that his first choice, Shahristani,
was not
going to
fly for a variety of different reasons, and one or two other names
were being
thrown
around, all of them not apparently particularly
suitable.
“So I sort
of just asked the question had Sistani raised an objection to Ayad
Allawi
and Brahimi
said no. That came as a considerable surprise to everybody in
the
room,
except Lakhdar Brahimi. That was a godsend to me, to those who
wanted to
see Ayad
Allawi as Prime Minister. There was no objection from Najaf. I
think within
48 hours
he was consecrated Prime Minister.”610
Sir Nigel
Sheinwald told the Inquiry that Dr Allawi’s name had not been
mentioned to
the UK
all the way through the period of the formation of the Interim
Government, but that
“from the
moment we heard that he was going to be the Prime Minister, he was
pretty
The GC
formally announced Dr Allawi’s selection as Prime Minister on 28
May 2004.612
1070.
On 1 June the
Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) was sworn in, with Dr Ayad
Allawi
as Prime
Minister and Dr Barham Salih as Deputy Prime
Minister.613
Sheikh
Ghazi
al- Yawar,
a former civil engineer, was sworn in as President. Dr Ibrahimi
Ja’afari of the
608
Dobbins J,
Jones SG, Runkle B & Mohandas S. Occupying
Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional
Authority.
RAND
Corporation, 2009.
609
Public
hearing, 26 January 2011, page 47.
610
Public
hearing, 26 January 2011, page 48.
611
Private
hearing, 3 September 2010, page 51.
612
BBC
News, 28 May
2004, Future
Iraqi prime minister named.
613
BBC
News, 1 June
2004, Iraq’s
interim cabinet sworn in.
383