Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1780-1799)
17 DECEMBER 2003
MR EDWARD
CHAPLIN OBE, MS
CAROLYN MILLER,
AIR VICE
MARSHAL CLIVE
LOADER OBE AND
MR IAN
LEE
Q1780 Chairman: Yes, before.
Mr Chaplin: They were pretty frequent.
Across Whitehall, I should think—
Q1781 Chairman: This committee you had
set up.
Mr Chaplin: The Iraq planning
unit was permanently in session.
Q1782 Chairman: Yes, but for the purposes
of co-ordinating what the other departments were thinking and
planning to do.
Mr Chaplin: It was fairly constant
by that stage.
Mr Lee: In terms of meetings,
I would say that there were weekly or more than weekly chiefs
of staff meetings which would have as a component of the meeting
a discussion of the post-conflict issues. There were meetings
at differing frequencies, often three times a week and then at
certain points it became daily, chaired in the Cabinet Office,
looking at the whole situation including post-conflict issues.
Hundreds of meetings is the answer.
Q1783 Chairman: Could you give us, not
now but by the time you come before us again, some rather more
detailed information? We would like the minutes, but we are not
going to ask for them. Something about the range of meetings and
the sort of subjects you were considering.[1]
You can see the transparency of our questioning. Did this all
come as a shock? Sir Kevin said you did not expect the war to
end so quickly and therefore things were activated fairly swiftly
to respond. We were in the State Department and they gave us the
impression that a lot of planning was taking place, but when that
part of the war ended, it looked as though people had been deluding
themselves. If planning had been taking place, it did not seem
to be evident on the ground. Could you give us a lot more information
as to how co-ordination took place?
Ms Miller: DFID clearly has a
major role on the humanitarian side in any conflict, in terms
of preparedness, contingency planning, so it is being prepared
ourselves, but also advising the MOD in particular and the FCO
on likely implications of the conflict, getting information. A
particular role that DFID has is combining the HMG effort with
the international effort. At the same stage we are talking to
the UN, other bodies, ICRC, NGOs and trying to make sure that
our effort is co-ordinated with international planning. We are
also very concerned about the continuum from humanitarian planning
to reconstruction planning, which is another role of ours. We
do not see the two things as separate; we see it as a movement
between one and the other and a similar role with the international
community and with our colleagues across Whitehall in preparing
for that movement through, information, advice and actually planning
for doing some of these things ourselves.
Q1784 Chairman: Were any other government
departments or agencies involved in these meetings?
Mr Chaplin: The Treasury was quite
often involved as a part of the Iraq planning unit.
Q1785 Chairman: Just the Treasury?
Mr Lee: No, there was quite a
wide range of departments in the meetings chaired by the Cabinet
Office, including the Department of Health, Home Office, Energy,
Trade and Industry, almost all departments you could think of
had some sort of angle on this question.
Q1786 Chairman: Were NGOs involved in
this process or were they kept quite apart?
Ms Miller: We talked to the NGOs,
mainly about the humanitarian side and then we would feed in their
concerns and their views to these meetings, of which I can confirm
there were many.
Q1787 Mr Viggers: There has been reference
by Mr Lee to Cabinet Office chairing meetings and to the discussions,
but who is responsible, who is the lead department? Where does
responsibility lie for co-ordinating these activities?
Mr Chaplin: Eventually in the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From February onwards Ministers
decided that there would be one unit represented across the key
Whitehall departments based in the FCO.
Q1788 Mr Viggers: So there was a date
on which FCO took over responsibility.
Mr Chaplin: Yes.
Q1789 Mr Viggers: At what stage did you
approach outside experts for advice? Throughout?
Mr Lee: I am just trying to think
of specific examples of outside expert advice. It would be a normal
part of business to take expert advice from outsiders where it
is appropriate. I cannot give you a particular date or a particular
piece of expert advice.
Chairman: Perhaps you could drop us a
note.[2]
Q1790 Mr Blunt: May I ask you what political
constraints you were under as far as post-conflict planning was
concerned before the conflict started?
Ms Miller: The main constraints
we were under were discussing, as we would normally, with international
partners, many of whom found it difficult to admit that they were
preparing for some of these eventualities. The United Nations
especially, but even some of the NGOs, wanted to keep that more
to themselves. A lot of people were hoping that the war was not
going to happen.
Q1791 Mr Blunt: What directions were
you receiving from your Secretary of State?
Ms Miller: Our Secretary of State
had clearly hoped that the United Nations would come together
and war would not be necessary, but at the same time we continued
contingency planning for a range of eventualities.
Q1792 Mr Blunt: What resource constraints
were you under?
Ms Miller: We were under no resource
constraints. We continued to plan for all eventualities. We did
not need to spend money in any great quantity in the preparatory
phase, but we did actually fund NGOs and the UN in their preparedness
before the conflict started.
Q1793 Mr Blunt: The Secretary of State
made clear to me in answer to an oral Parliamentary Question on
the floor of the House before the conflict started that she was
not spending any additional money out of her own department except
that money which was in a sense automatically going into international
institutions like UN agencies, where money would otherwise be
going. It struck me as being a very clear answer, that she was
not spending any money in addition from her budget. Did I get
the correct information?
Ms Miller: We did fund preparedness
work with the NGOs and the UN in addition to the money they would
have received.
Q1794 Mr Blunt: Additional funding.
Ms Miller: Yes.
Q1795 Mr Blunt: How much?
Ms Miller: I think just before
the start we had committed up to £20 million. I believe that
was communicated to Parliament.
Q1796 Mr Blunt: You are saying as the
lead official on this that the attitude of your Secretary of State,
as it certainly appeared to the rest of us to be, that it was
not going to happen, was it, did not affect the whole planning
process?
Ms Miller: We continued the planning
process for a range of scenarios.
Q1797 Mr Blunt: Did it restrict the scenarios
on which you thought you could plan to spend money?
Ms Miller: In fact we planned
for very grave humanitarian consequences, which luckily we did
not have to respond to. No, we planned for a very wide range of
possible eventualities.
Q1798 Mr Blunt: May I quickly ask the
representatives of other departments a similar question about
the political and resource constraints on planning? We have just
heard in evidence about UORs, not wanting to send the wrong signals
by ordering urgent equipment under the UOR procedure. In addition
to that, what other restraints, both political and financial,
were you suffering under in the planning process?
Mr Lee: We were not suffering
from any constraints of that sort.
Q1799 Mr Blunt: We have just taken evidence
that UORs were delayed because you did not want to give the wrong
signals. People were deployed late because you did not want to
give the wrong signals. Is that not a restraint?
Mr Lee: No, UORs were not purchased
late or people deployed late. That implies that there was a date
against which they had to be deployed and at the time we are talking
about there was no date, there was simply a process which we were
going through.
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