The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“… it is
hard to escape the conclusion that CPA policies and US military
tactics made
the
situation worse”.
1134.
After
security, Mr Richmond suggested that “services have been the
CPA’s main
failing.
Baghdad presently has fewer than 12 hours per day of electricity –
no different
from a year
ago”.
1135.
Looking back
on the Seven Step Plan devised by Ambassador Bremer,
Mr Richmond
assessed it as:
“… no doubt
overly ambitious … But, rightly, he [Ambassador Bremer]
wanted
Governing
Council buy in and by the time it was clear that they could not
agree
and that
Sistani’s opposition was an insurmountable obstacle, three months
had
been
wasted.”
1136.
Mr Richmond
said that a:
“… major
political problem we faced was the lack of internal leadership,
particularly
but not
exclusively Sunni, as a result of Saddam’s policy of eliminating
all potential
rivals. The
CPA was forced to rely on exiles and political parties which
were
organised
on ethnic/sectarian lines. Their dominant presence on the
Governing
Council and
the absence of strong Sunni representation tended to reinforce
a
feeling
among the Sunni community that they were being excluded from
the
1137.
The Inquiry
asked Sir David Richmond whether the CPA could have done more
to
encourage
the election of political leaders who were more “indigenous”, in
that they had
lived
through the Saddam Hussein era and were less bound by ethnic
sectarian lines.
He
said:
“I think
quite a lot of effort was put into it but I admit that we did not
succeed … the
distinction
between exile and indigenous over time … disappeared but it was
still a
factor up
until June 2004 … Lakhdar Brahimi … was very determined, rightly,
to try
to find
some new Sunni individuals who could play a leadership role and he
found
that
extremely difficult. He didn’t find it any easier than the CPA had
found it.
“So yes, we
failed, but I think it was because of the circumstances I have
described
there, the
situation which we found ourselves in rather than a failure to
recognise the
problem or
to put sufficient effort in trying to remedy it.”647
1138.
In his
valedictory telegram Mr Richmond observed that Iraqis were
glad to
be rid of
Saddam Hussein and that much had been accomplished in the
political
arena
(including the TAL and the creation of the interim government and
electoral
646
Telegram
359 IraqRep to FCO London, 28 June 2004, ‘Iraq: Valedictory: The
End of Occupation’.
647
Public
hearing, 26 January 2011, pages 49-50.
394