12.1 |
Security Sector Reform
21.
The final
version of that SSR paper was produced in consultation with
officials from
22.
As in earlier
drafts, the paper did not propose how to conduct SSR, but
instead
sought to
identify which issues would need to be addressed by an SSR
strategy.18
Building on
the earlier paper, it listed the issues in six
categories:
•
What
security structures would be appropriate? That should be based on
an
assessment
of the internal and external threats to Iraq, as well as
consideration
of its
future constitutional shape and the relative affordability of its
armed forces.
•
Who should
be in charge? The organisation of the international body that
would
manage SSR
activity should be given a high priority, “ideally before
military
action”.
That body would need to interact closely with the post‑conflict
interim
administration.
•
Methodology.
To what extent could reform be imposed by the US military
or
UN‑led
government, and how far should the exclusion of members of the
Tikriti
clan
(Saddam Hussein’s clan) be taken?
•
DDR.
Reducing the “bloated security sector” raised questions about
resettling
those who
had been removed and identifying mechanisms to bring
perpetrators
of crimes
against humanity to justice.
•
Qualitative
and quantitative change. How to reform the working culture of
the
security
sector, “particularly the police and the courts, so that it
operates on the
basis of
humanitarian values in support of a legitimate
government”?
•
Accountability.
The new SSR structures should “ideally” be accountable
to
civilian
control. Enshrining the principle of civilian oversight would be
“key to
establishing
a fully accountable security apparatus”.
23.
The FCO
offered some “provisional” conclusions, including:
“•
From the
outset, SSR should be at the centre of post‑conflict work,
rather
than
outside it as happened in Afghanistan … we should begin discussing
the
mechanism
for the international community’s engagement in SSR before
military
action
begins.
•
As any SSR
plan will have to address a number of complicated issues,
we
should set
up a UK working group now to start the detailed assessment
to
enable us
to engage with the US (and the academic community in the
UK)
on SSR.
•
The new
Iraqi administration should be involved as early as possible in
the
process so
as to feel ownership of the new structures.
17
Minute Dodd
to Manning, 3 December 2002, ‘Ad Hoc Group on Iraq’.
18
Paper FCO
Middle East Department, 10 December 2002, ‘Iraq: Security Sector
Reform’.
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