The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
if the UK
failed to persuade the US, it risked “being drawn into a huge
commitment
of UK resources
for a highly complex task of administration and law and order
for
an uncertain
period”.
598.
By March 2003,
having failed to persuade the US of the advantages of a
UN‑led
interim
administration, the UK had set the less ambitious goal of
persuading the US to
accept UN
authorisation of a Coalition‑led interim administration and an
international
presence
that would include the UN.205
599.
On 19 March,
Mr Blair stated in Parliament that discussions were taking
place with
the US, UN
and others on the role of the UN and post‑conflict
issues.206
600.
Discussions
continued, but, as the invasion began:
•
The UK had
not secured US agreement to a Security Council
resolution
authorising
post‑conflict administration and could not be sure when, or on
what
terms,
agreement would be possible.
•
The extent
of the UN’s preparations, which had been hindered by the
absence
of
agreement on post‑conflict arrangements, remained uncertain.
Mr Annan
emphasised
to Ms Short the need for clarity on US thinking so that UN
planning
could
proceed207
and told
Sir Jeremy Greenstock that he “would not wish to
see
any
arrangement subjugating UN activity to Coalition
activity”.208
•
Potential
international partners for reconstruction and additional
Coalition
partners to
provide security continued to make their post‑conflict
contributions
conditional
on UN authorisation for Phase IV (the military term for
post‑conflict
601.
Despite being
aware of the shortcomings of the US plan,210
strong US
resistance
to a
leading role for the UN,211
indications
that the UN did not want the administration
of Iraq to
become its responsibility212
and a
warning about the tainted image of the UN
in
Iraq,213
at no stage
did the UK Government formally consider other policy
options,
including
the possibility of making participation in military action
conditional on a
satisfactory
plan for the post‑conflict period, or how to mitigate the known
risk that
the UK
could find itself drawn into a “huge commitment of UK resources”
for which
no contingency
preparations had been made.
205
Paper Iraq
Planning Unit, 25 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Phase IV: Authorising
UNSCR’.
206
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 19 March
2003, columns 931‑932.
207
Telegram
501 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 21 March 2003, ‘Iraq
Humanitarian/Reconstruction:
Clare
Short’s Visit to New York’.
208
Telegram
526 UKMIS New York to FCO London, 25 March 2003, ‘Iraq Phase IV: UN
Dynamics’.
209
Paper FCO,
25 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Phase IV Issues’.
210
Minute
Drummond to Rycroft, 19 March 2003, ‘Iraq Ministerial
Meeting’.
211
Minute
Ricketts to Private Secretary [FCO], 7 February 2003, ‘Iraq
Strategy’.
212
Public
hearing, 15 December 2009, page 5.
213
Paper
Middle East Department, 12 December 2002, ‘Interim Administrations
in Iraq: Why a UN‑led
Interim
Administration would be in the US interest’.
80