10.3 |
Reconstruction: oil, commercial interests, debt relief, asylum and
stabilisation policy
“The
inter-departmental structures to handle reconstruction issues …
allowed UK
Trade and
Investment to register this interest. But the departments
responsible
for
overseeing this co-ordination made clear at an early stage that UK
commercial
interests
were a lower priority than other aspects of reconstruction. The
result …
was that
the contribution that the private sector could make to
post-conflict
reconstruction
was less well registered. This contrasts with the US use of the
private
sector at
the planning stage.”406
688.
Mr Warren
also advised that DFID’s concentration on international
competitive
tendering
and the ECGD’s “understandable” reluctance to offer cover had
further
inhibited a
“proactive and joined-up approach”. Co-operation with DFID at a
working
level had
been “reasonable”.
689.
The result had
been that promoting UK companies was seen solely as
the
responsibility
of UKTI.
690.
Mr Warren
concluded that the interests of the private sector had not
been
a high
enough priority for the Government, and that the potential
contribution to
reconstruction
that could have been made by private sector had not been
recognised
by the
Government. UKTI activities had nevertheless resulted in “a
reasonable amount”
of business
for UK companies.
691.
UK Government
lobbying on behalf of UK business intensified in early
2004,
in
anticipation of contracts that would flow from IRRF2 and against a
background of
growing
press and Parliamentary criticism that UK companies were at a
disadvantage
in bidding
for US-funded contracts.
692.
CPA officials
briefed UK private sector representatives on the CPA’s objectives
and
requirements
at a conference in London on 21 November.407
693.
On 5 December,
the US announced that companies from the US, Iraq,
“Coalition
partners
and force-contributing nations” were eligible to bid for prime
contracts under
IRRF2.408
Prime
contracts under IRRF1 had been open to US companies
only.
694.
In
mid-December, the US Department of Defense invited bids for 12
major IRRF2
design and
build construction contracts and six reconstruction management
contracts.409
695.
USACE awarded
two design and build construction contracts in the oil sector
on
16 January
2004 (the first contracts awarded under IRRF2).410
The
contracts were won
by a US
company (KBR, for the southern oilfields) and a joint US/Australian
venture
(for the
northern oilfields). Bids submitted by three UK companies were
unsuccessful.
406
Minute
Warren to Haddrill, 10 December 2003, ‘Post-Conflict Resolution:
Iraq’.
407
Annotated
Agenda, 27 November 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
408
Paper
Wolfowitz, 5 December 2003, ‘Determination and
Findings’.
409
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing Office,
2009.
410
Briefing
DTI, [undated], ‘Key Points Brief on DTI Issues: Ad Hoc Ministerial
Meeting on Iraq’.
477