11.1 |
De-Ba’athification
77.
On 2 June,
Mr Blair met President Bush over breakfast.62
In his note
reporting their
discussion
Sir David recorded Mr Blair’s analysis that the Coalition
should be careful not
to create a
large pool of disaffected people by targeting those who had joined
the Ba’ath
Party
simply to get a job.
78.
Mr Blair
argued that a clear political vision and timetable was needed,
together with
a media
strategy to avoid a “dangerous” information vacuum.
Writing in
September 2003, Major General Freddie Viggers, the outgoing Senior
British
Military
Representative ‑ Iraq, commented in his post‑tour report that “all
but the hardliners
are
grateful that the Ba’athist regime has been
removed”.63
The RAND
assessment of the Occupation of Iraq records that the initial
reaction to the
de‑Ba’athification
order was enthusiastic.64
The authors
cite polls in August 2003 reporting
over 94
percent of the Iraqi population saying that either all or some
Ba’athists should be
removed
from office65
and that 92
percent of Iraqis opposed the participation of former
Ba’ath
Party members in Iraq’s political institutions.66
According
to Mr Ali A Allawi, a Minister in both the Interim Iraqi
Government and the Iraqi
Transitional
Government:
“De‑Ba’athification
in the early days of the CPA proceeded in a generally
straightforward
way. The vast majority of individuals caught in the round of
dismissals
were those
who could be clearly identified in the higher levels of the Party
ranks, and
the case
against them was clear cut.”67
Hard
Lessons commented:
“Most
Iraqis agreed that some de‑Ba’athification was necessary, but many
believed
that the
CPA order had gone too far …
…
“Whatever
its reach should have been, the consequences of the
de‑Ba’athification
order
quickly became clear: it reduced the ranks of Iraq’s capable
bureaucrats and
thus
limited the capacity of Iraqi ministries to contribute to
reconstruction.”68
62
Letter
Manning to McDonald, 2 June 2003, ‘Breakfast meeting between the
Prime Minister and
President
Bush: 2 June 2003’.
63
Minute
Viggers to CDS & CJO, September 2003, ‘SBMR (I): End of tour
report’.
64
Bensahel N,
Oliker O, Crane K, Brennan RR Jr, Gregg HS, Sullivan T &
Rathmell A. After
Saddam:
Prewar
Planning and the Occupation of Iraq. RAND
Corporation, 2008.
65
Iraq Center
for Research and Strategic Studies, Results of
the First Public Opinion Poll in Iraq,
6 August 2003.
66
US
Department of State, Iraqis
Officer Dim Evaluation of Reconstruction Effort Thus
Far.
67
Allawi
AA. The
Occupation of Iraq: winning the war, losing the
peace. Yale
University Press, 2007.
68
Bowen SW
Jr. Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. U.S.
Government Printing
Office, 2009.
17