The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1.
This Section
contains the Inquiry’s analysis, conclusions and lessons in
relation
to
the de‑Ba’athification of the Iraqi public sector, the
evidence for which is set out in
Section
11.1.
•
Early
decisions on the form of de‑Ba’athification and its implementation
had a
significant
and lasting negative impact on Iraq.
•
Limiting
de‑Ba’athification to the top three tiers of the party, rather than
extending
it to the
fourth, would have had the potential to be far less damaging to
Iraq’s
post‑invasion
recovery and political stability.
•
The UK’s
ability to influence the decision by the Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA)
on the
scope of the policy was limited and informal.
•
The UK chose
not to act on its well‑founded misgivings about handing over
the
implementation
of de‑Ba’athification policy to the Governing Council.
2.
Although the
US and UK had discussed and recognised the need for
it,
de‑Ba’athification
was one of many areas of post‑invasion activity in Iraq for
which
objectives
and plans had not been agreed between the two Governments before
the
invasion
(see Section 6.5). Consequently, no detailed preparations for
implementation
of a
shared de‑Ba’athification policy were put in place.
3.
The UK lacked
the deep understanding of which levels of the Iraqi public sector
were
highly
politicised that would have been desirable in developing a
de‑Ba’athification
policy, but
did recognise that party membership was likely to have been a
matter of
expediency
rather than conviction for many Iraqi citizens. Since the UK’s
planning
assumption
was that a large proportion of the Iraqi civil service would
continue to
function
under new leadership post‑invasion, the main UK concern was that a
light‑touch
de‑Ba’athification
process should protect administrative capacity for the
reconstruction
of the
country.
4.
Measures to
prevent a resurgence of the Ba’ath Party were important both to
ordinary
Iraqi
citizens and to Iraqi politicians. The UK recognised the
psychological importance
of
reassuring both groups that the Ba’athists would not return to
power, but did not
fully grasp
the extent to which de‑Ba’athification might have consequences for
the
relationship
between the Shia and Sunni communities. The Coalition did not have
a plan
to deal
with the tensions which inevitably rose as result. This placed at
risk the UK’s
objective
that Iraq would become a stable and united state.
5.
Recognition of
the symbolic importance of de‑Ba’athification is clear from its
inclusion
in General
Franks’ Freedom Message of 16 April 2003, and from the fact that it
was the
subject of
the first Order issued by the CPA in May 2003.
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