The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
73.
In a telegram
to the British Embassy Washington on 30 May, FCO officials
wrote:
“De‑Ba’athification
and dismantling the institutions of the Ba’athist State are
clearly
necessary
if we are to achieve our post‑conflict objectives. But so too is
maintaining
security.
We are concerned that some aspects of the first, especially if it
includes
laying off
without pay the regular army, may have an unnecessarily negative
impact
on the
second, rather than the positive effects we need them to
have.”60
74.
The telegram
continued:
“We
understand why Bremer has felt it necessary to take a tough line
on
de‑Ba’athification
…
“But there
is a downside … we are concerned that de‑Ba’athification may be
proving
to be a
blunt instrument. Our secondees working alongside the ministries
are
reporting
that the de‑Ba’athification Order is catching Iraqi public servants
who have
shown
themselves to be effective and willing to work with us in areas
critical to the
Coalition’s
success – the police, for example.”
75.
The FCO
suggested that the problem should be addressed by the Coalition
taking
“a
vigorously pragmatic approach to implementing the
de‑Ba’athification Order” so that
it provided
an incentive to those who were not committed to Ba’athist ideology
to work
with the
Coalition, for example allowing ex‑party members to be re‑employed
on a
probationary
basis. The FCO noted that work was “in hand” to develop the
machinery
to implement
the order.
76.
The following
day Sir David Manning reported to Mr Straw’s Principal
Private
Secretary
that he had told Dr Rice and Mr Andy Card, President
Bush’s Chief of Staff,
over dinner
that:
“… we had
worries about the de‑Ba’athification process. I was sure that it
was
right to
signal that we were determined to break the Ba’ath Party and
dismantle its
structures.
But we must be careful not to create a situation in which token
Ba’athists
were
alienated from the Coalition because we denied them jobs, and a
chance to
contribute
to post‑Saddam Iraq. If we made this mistake, we would create a
large
number of
disaffected and hostile people who would quickly turn against us.
The key
was surely
to be pragmatic. Now that Bremer had made his strong and
necessary
commitment
to de‑Ba’athification, we should implement it pragmatically. We
should
think about
operating a system whereby people stayed in their jobs until it
was
shown that
their track record rather than a Ba’athist label made them a
liability.”61
60
Telegram
251 FCO London to Washington, 30 May 2003, ‘Iraq: Dismantling the
Baathist State’.
61
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 1 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Conversation with Condi
Rice’.
16