The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
651.
In her memoir,
Secretary Rice described meeting Dr Ja’afari during this
visit:
“Jack and I
had agreed that we’d take turns making the argument that he had to
end
his pursuit
of the prime minister position: I would go through the basic facts
of the
situation,
and Jack would appeal to him politician to politician. Everything
we tried
met with
stubbornness and obtuseness … I held my tongue and let Jack try
again.
After a
while, though, I just said to Ja’afari, ‘You aren’t going to be
prime minister.
You have to
step down. This isn’t because the United States wants it this way.
The
Iraqis
don’t want you, and that’s what matters.’ Jack appeared a little
taken aback,
but I’d
learned to be direct with Ja’afari, who now looked hurt as the
translation rolled
forward.
But he held his ground.
“… Not
convinced that we’d gotten through, we went back to Ja’afari, and
this time,
with only
our interpreter in the room, delivered the message again. Even
though he
resisted,
we knew we’d gotten through this time.”312
652.
In his weekly
report on 2 April, Lt Gen Fry wrote:
“Sectarian
tension and the possibility of civil war has tended to attract our
attention
recently,
but I judge the insidious and increasingly pervasive influence of
the militias
to be the
greatest single security challenge facing Iraq. This is
particularly the case
where they
provide not only gunmen on the street, but also an integrated
political/
military
organisation with the capacity to provide rudimentary social
services:
essentially
a state within a state.”313
653.
Mr Blair
met Secretary Rice on the evening of 3 April before she returned
to
Washington
after her visit to Iraq.314
654.
They agreed on
the need for rapid formation of an acceptable government
of
national
unity. Mr Blair explained the centrality of Iraq to the rest
of the US and UK
agenda;
without an Iraqi Government he and President Bush would get no
traction for
their
arguments on Iraq or other major international issues. Once a
government was
formed it
would be “desirable to build outwards and make ambitious moves in
other
parts of
the agenda in order to regain the political
initiative”.
655.
On 4 April,
Mr Patey sent an update to the FCO on the formation of a
new
Iraqi
Government following the visit by Secretary Rice and
Mr Straw.315
Although
the
visitors
had “delivered a strong message to Ja’afari”, he had nonetheless
“affirmed his
determination
to continue the fight to stay in situ”.
312
Rice
C. No Higher
Honour: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. Simon
& Schuster, 2011.
313
Report
SBMR-I to CDS, 2 April 2006, ‘SBMR-I Weekly Report (205) 2 April
2006’.
314
Letter
Sheinwald to Hayes, 4 April 2006, ‘Prime Minister’s meeting with US
Secretary of State Rice,
3 April’.
315
eGram
9415/06 Baghdad to FCO London, 4 April 2006, ‘Iraq: Government
Formation: Follow-Up to
Visit by
Foreign Secretary and US Secretary Rice, 2-3 April’.
596