10.4 |
Conclusions: Reconstruction
29.
On 17 April,
Mr Blair agreed that the UK should “increase significantly the
level of …
political
and practical support to ORHA, including the secondment of
significant numbers
of staff in
priority areas”.7
30.
Notwithstanding
the Government’s decision to increase support for ORHA, Ms
Short
remained
cautious about the extent of DFID’s engagement. Her assessment was
that
ORHA was
not the only game in town. In particular, “immediate assistance”
was a job for
the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rather than
ORHA.8
While
ORHA
was
responsible for “paying wages”, other recovery issues would emerge
from
a formal
needs assessment undertaken by the World Bank and the
International
Monetary
Fund (IMF).
31.
Ms Short
concluded on 23 April that DFID needed “one or two people” within
ORHA
to act as
DFID’s “eyes and ears”. DFID “should not bow to external pressure
to put
people into
ORHA for the sake of it”.
32.
Ms Short’s
assessment reflected her reluctance to engage in post‑conflict
activity
other than
for the immediate humanitarian response to conflict, until it was
confirmed
that the UN
would lead the reconstruction effort.
33.
ORHA was, as
Ministers and officials had reported, an extremely weak
organisation.
But it was
the organisation responsible for immediate reconstruction, and the
scale
and urgency
of the reconstruction challenge was already apparent. DFID should
have
supported
the Government’s decision to increase support for ORHA. The
decision to
adopt a
unilateral position fed concerns within Whitehall and in Iraq over
the lack of
DFID
engagement.
34.
The AHMGIR
agreed on 24 April that the UK should offer to play “a leading
role”
in
ORHA(South), provided that ORHA confirmed that the UK would not be
required to
pay for
reconstruction.9
The AHMGIR
also endorsed the UK military assumption that the
post‑conflict
UK Area of Responsibility (AOR) would comprise four provinces in
southern
Iraq
coterminous with the boundaries of ORHA’s southern
region.
35.
The AHMGIR did
so at a time when there was considerable concern about
ORHA’s
capabilities
and without robust analysis either of the strategic implications
for the UK or
of the
military’s capacity to support the UK’s potential civilian
obligations in the region.
36.
Ambassador
Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad on 12 May to lead the CPA.
The
creation of
the CPA signalled a change in US policy: instead of a rapid
withdrawal,
the US was
now working on the assumption of a protracted occupation. ORHA
was
absorbed
into the CPA in June.
7
Letter
Rycroft to McDonald, 17 April 2003, ‘Iraq: ORHA’.
8
Minute
Bewes to Miller, 24 April 2003, ‘Iraq: 23 April’.
9
Minutes, 24
April 2003, Ad Hoc Group on Iraq Rehabilitation
meeting.
533