The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
98.
Responsibilities
under the Geneva and Hague regulations included that, as
an
Occupying
Force, the UK would assume responsibility for ensuring public order
and
safety
within their AO.74
99.
UND had
assumed that the UK would not provide an “executive” police force
(“a
force to do
actual policing”) for Iraq, which would be a “massive
undertaking”.75
Instead
the focus
would be on supplying a “small number” of UK police to provide
training and
advice on
SSR, as had happened in other international policing missions. It
was judged
that those
police would need to be armed.
100.
Mr Pattison
told the Inquiry:
“We were
aware of the constraints and we were aware of roughly how many
police
we could
provide to do training and it wasn’t very many. This would have to
be a
wholly
voluntary force. Any police deployed would need the approval of
their Chief
Constable.
There were duty of care issues.
“You know,
this was not going to be one of those situations where you could
simply
turn on a
tap of British police to go and help. It was going to be very
difficult. We
[UND]
certainly understood that, but I’m not aware that there was ever a
serious
discussion
of post‑conflict police issues.”76
101.
On 23 January,
a junior official wrote to the Head of the UND
Peacekeeping
Section to
seek authorisation to proceed with “plans for the training of a
small contingent
(30
officers) of Ministry of Defence Police for immediate deployment
should they be
required”.77
The Minute
stated:
“… we are
taking these steps mindful of our experience in Kosovo, where
the
Prime
Minister committed us to deployment of UK civpol shortly after the
liberation
of Pristina
… In that exercise police were on the ground within a month but
only
following a
great deal of effort.”
102.
Following a
Cabinet meeting on 10 April, Mr David Blunkett, the Home
Secretary,
told
officials that he wanted to be in a position to offer, or react
very quickly to a request
for,
assistance in re‑establishing policing in Iraq.78
He was
reported to have been
thinking
more of offering specialist advice than substantial numbers of
police officers.
103.
Home Office
officials were told by Mr Pattison that the FCO’s preferred
approach
was to
proceed with the initial deployment of a small MOD police
contingent before
deciding
whether to ask the Home Office for any assistance from other
forces.
74
Paper MOD,
9 December 2009, ‘Iraq Security Sector Reform’.
75
Public
hearing Pattison and Buck, 31 January 2011, pages 3‑4.
76
Public
hearing, 31 January 2011, page 14.
77
Minute FCO
[junior official] to UND [junior official], 23 January 2003, ‘Post
Saddam Iraq: UK Civilian
Policing
Contingency Planning’.
78
Email Home
Office [junior official] to Kernaghan, 14 April 2003, ‘Potential
Police Involvement in Iraq’.
86