10.3 |
Reconstruction: oil, commercial interests, debt relief, asylum and
stabilisation policy
748.
In a 7 June
briefing, the UKTI advised that it had stopped “all proactive
commercial
work” in
Iraq, although it remained heavily involved in providing
information to UK
companies
and in helping them manage existing commitments.446
UKTI
planned to
maintain
one UK Commercial Officer post in Baghdad, which it considered the
“minimal
level for
operational needs” (reduced from the three Commercial Officers
deployed in
September
2003).
749.
Mr Lusty
advised Sir Stephen Brown on 9 June that the IIWG had “run
its
course”.447
Private
sector participation was poor. The IIWG had originally been
conceived
as the core
of an early UK trade mission to Iraq, but the security situation
had made that
impossible.
It had served instead as a useful forum for briefing industry. That
function
had now
been taken over by the six sector working groups.
750.
In early June,
UKTI began to consider whether to continue to fund the
two
consultants
in the PMO.448
751.
A UKTI
official set out the arguments for Mr O’Brien on 21
June:
“We can
claim indirect benefit to UK plc from these consultants, but it is
difficult to
quantify
any direct commercial benefit. PMO procurement still (rightly) has
to go
through a
full competitive process … But these consultancies have earned us
a
great deal
of goodwill from PMO senior management, ensured a UK voice at
the
highest
levels of the organisation, and [have been] a useful but
unacknowledged
source of
commercial information.”449
752.
The PMO had
identified a prime contractor that was willing to take over
the
contract of
one of the UKTI-funded consultants. The contract of the second
ended
in September.
753.
The official
recommended that given the difficulty in identifying any
direct
commercial
benefit to the UK and the high cost of the consultants, UKTI should
not
agree to
Admiral Nash’s request to extend the consultants’
contracts.
754.
Mr O’Brien’s
Assistant Private Secretary responded on 23 June, asking
officials
to look
for an alternative source of funding for the posts.450
755.
Discussions
within UKTI and between UKTI and the FCO and DFID failed
to
identify
further funding for the posts.451
446
Briefing
UKTI, 7 June 2004, ‘Permanent Secretaries’ Meeting on UK Civilian
Staffing in Iraq,
8 June
2004’.
447
Minute
Lusty to Brown, 9 June 2004, ‘What should we do with the Iraq
Industry Working Group?’
448
Minute
Lusty to Fletcher, 9 June 2004, ‘Iraq: UKTI Consultancy Support for
the PMO’.
449
Minute UKTI
[junior official] to PS/Mr O’Brien, 21 June 2004,
[untitled].
450
Minute
APS/O’Brien to UKTI [junior official], 23 June 2004, ‘UKTI
Secondees to the PMO in Baghdad’.
451
Minute UKTI
[junior official] to PS/Mr O’Brien [FCO], 13 August 2004, ‘UK
Secondees in the Project and
Contracting
Office (PCO) Baghdad’.
485