The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
80.
The MOD
produced a number of papers in March that discussed
SSR.
81.
On 7 March, an
MOD “Red Team”, which had been established within the
Defence
Intelligence
Staff (DIS) (as described in Section 6.2), produced a report
seeking to
identify
“the optimum structure of the Immediate and Interim Administrations
in Iraq
and other
measures most likely to obtain and retain the support of the Iraqi
people”.65
The report
stated that “law and order, including the judicial process, will
require special
handling”.
It stated that:
“•
… once an
assessment has been made of the effectiveness of local
police
forces it
should be increasingly possible to include them in military‑led law
and
order
operations;
•
the
judicial system is largely dysfunctional and … some form of interim
judicial
system may
be necessary;
•
the prison
system is likely to require a complete overhaul and
supervisory
regime,
although the infrastructure may be useable.”
82.
The Red Team
advised that:
“Expectations
that the Coalition Forces will be able to deliver these
responsibilities
[those of
an Occupying Power under international law] are high; so if there
is doubt
over our
ability to meet them in an ‘exemplary’ fashion we should take steps
to lower
expectations
as early as possible.”
83.
On 11 March,
the DIS issued a further assessment of the “political and
security
environment”
that Coalition troops would encounter in Basra.66
Though not
specifically
focused on
SSR, some of the judgements in the document illustrate the
UK’s
pre‑invasion
understanding of the Iraqi security sector in what would become its
Area
of Operations
(AOR).
Area of
Operations (AO) refers to the UK military’s area of combat
operations during the
invasion of
Iraq (Phase III of operations).
Area of
Responsibility (AOR) refers to the area for which the UK military
was responsible
during the
post‑conflict Occupation of Iraq (Phase IV of
operations).
The two
terms were often used interchangeably, sometimes in the same
document.
65
Minute
PS/CDI to PS/SofS [MOD], 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq Red Team – Obtaining
and Retaining the
Support of
the Iraqi People in the Aftermath of Conflict’ attaching Paper DIS
Red Team, 7 March 2003,
‘Obtaining
and Retaining the Support of the Iraqi People in the Aftermath of
Conflict’.
66
Report DIS,
11 March 2003, ‘Basra: Post Saddam Governance’.
82