10.3 |
Reconstruction: oil, commercial interests, debt relief, asylum and
stabilisation policy
567.
Sir Christopher
concluded:
“We [the
UK] will need to register with the Americans that, in the event of
war,
the UK
will expect to get a generous share of reconstruction and oil
contracts after
Saddam’s
defeat. This did not/not happen in Kuwait after the Gulf
War.”
568.
An oil
industry representative called on Mr Edward Chaplin, FCO
Director Middle
East and
North Africa, on 2 October to express his concern that “by sticking
to the
rules over
Iraq and not going for post-sanctions contracts”, UK oil companies
would
lose
out.324
There were
rumours that some countries would “sell their support” for
US
action in
return for a guarantee that their deals with Saddam Hussein’s
regime would
be honoured
by a new administration.
569.
Mr Chaplin
said that the FCO was “seized of the issue” and “determined to
get
a fair
slice of the action for UK companies”. Most of the rumours could be
discounted.
570.
Trade Partners
UK (TPUK)325
began
considering in early October 2002 what it
could and
should do in the event that Iraq returned to “any degree of
normalcy”.326
571.
On 15 October,
Mr Bill Henderson, TPUK Director International Group 1,
advised
Baroness
Symons, joint Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)/FCO Minister
of State
for
International Trade and Investment, that TPUK’s contingency
planning was “purely
internal
and at a very early stage”.327
TPUK had
made provision for a Commercial Officer
to be
included in the initial stage of a re-established UK mission in
Baghdad. There were
likely to
be significant commercial opportunities for UK firms, although
there were limits
on what
TPUK could do to identify those opportunities:
“For the
moment there is some sensitivity to giving prominence to the
commercial
aspects. We
are keen to avoid giving the impression that commercial interests
are
driving our
policy in Iraq.”
572.
On 25 October,
Mr Tony Brenton, Deputy Head of Mission at the British
Embassy
Washington,
reported a conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney’s office,
in which
he had been
told that Vice President Cheney was about to discuss Iraqi oil
contracts
with former
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. Mr Primakov would be
told that
the “bids
of those countries which co-operated with the US over Iraq would be
looked
at more
sympathetically than those which did not”.328
324
Email
Chaplin to Gray, 2 October 2002, ‘Iraq – Views of UK
Business’.
325
Trade
Partners UK was the division of British Trade International (BTI)
responsible for promoting
UK exports
until October 2003, when BTI was renamed UK Trade and Investment
(UKTI) and the Trade
Partners UK
identity fell out of use.
326
Minute TPUK
[junior official] to Henderson, 2 October 2002, ‘Iraq – Getting
Back into the Market’.
327
Minute
Henderson to PS/Baroness Symons, 15 October 2002, ‘Iraq:
Contingency Planning Commercial
Aspects’.
328
Letter
Brenton to Chaplin, 25 October 2002, ‘Iraq: Oil’.
459