Examination of Witnesses (Questions 103
- 119)
TUESDAY 30 MARCH 2004
RT HON
MR JACK
STRAW MP, MR
JOHN SAWERS
CMG AND MR
EDWARD OAKDEN
CMG
Q103 Chairman: Can I welcome you,
Foreign Secretary, to the Committee, welcome you together with
Mr Sawers and Mr Oakden, two old regular contributors to the Committee.
We know the problem today, that we had planned on the basis of
a two-hour session and we have reduced it for reasons beyond our
control to one hour. Can I also say that we have one new member
to the Committee whom we welcome extremely warmly, our colleague
Andrew Mackay. Andrew, welcome. Foreign Secretary, as you know
we are continuing our inquiry into the War on Terrorism. Yesterday
you replied to our last Report for which we thank you. Let's go
straight on to the areas of Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and
I would like to begin in this way: clearly the timetable is fairly
clear, with the transfer of sovereignty on June 30, elections
December/January, so can you say how, first of all, our own relationship
with Iraq is likely to change on June 30/1 July? Presumably we
shall have a fairly enhanced embassy, but what will the transfer
of sovereignty mean in practice?
Mr Straw: Well, first of all,
it will obviously mean that we will cease to be occupying powers
and sovereignty will transfer to the Iraqi people and whatever
interim structure of government is put in place, so, as you anticipate,
the relationship will be, as it were, between two sovereign nations.
The best parallel I can offer, Mr Chairman, is the relationship
of that between the United Kingdom Government and the Afghanistan
Government. There are many differences, but that is the best parallel
I can offer. We are taking very active steps obviously to establish
an embassy, to appoint an ambassador, to ensure it is fully functioning,
and we are also working very closely with Secretary Powell and
the US State Department about the parallel work which they have.
Q104 Mr Maples: I think one of the
things that concerns me is that after we have gone, after June
30, what happens if the Iraqi Constitutional Assembly starts to
write a constitution which, for instance, sets up an Islamic state,
denies votes to women, does the sort of things which are completely
in contravention of the transitional law? What leverage do you
think we will have then to get our objectives?
Mr Straw: The main leverage ought
to be through the United Nations, and it is, Mr Maples, with that
possibility that I think it is remote, amongst other things, but
we would like to see a good United Nations Security Council Resolution
passed in mid-May, if possible, which would endorse the post-transitional
arrangements and endorse the transitional and administrative law.
In a sense, that would resolve some of the arguments which would
otherwise take place and provide a base for the discussions and
the debate in which political argument could take place leading
to the elections at the turn of the year.
Q105 Mr Maples: Secretary of State,
I can see that that would help, but do you feel that particularly
we and the United States, the original coalition force, will actually
have some levers to pull, some cards to play as it continues,
although they will have not necessarily . . .
Mr Straw: Yes, first of all, I
do not think there is any appetite for an Islamic state. At least
the history needs to be borne in mind. I happened by chance to
be reading last night part of the history of the Suez Conflict
of 1956. There was a letter which Anthony Eden sent to Eisenhower
in 1956 in which Eden talked about the disruptive effect of what
he thought would be President Nasser's programme on stability
in the Middle East and he comments that it could seriously destabilise
Iraq, which was stable and progressive. It has always been relatively
secular. The problem was that it was run by a man who reigned
with a reign of terror, but I am reasonably hopeful about that.
Don't forget that part of the transitional arrangements will be
a continuing responsibility for the coalition for security.
Q106 Mr Maples: You talk about setting
up, obviously, a new embassy. Do you envisage bringing together
under the ambassador all of the different British government agencies
that are playing a part out there? There is obviously a large
aid programme and the Americans envisage doing that.
Mr Straw: Yes. If you go to the
new British Embassy in Kabul, there is a new purpose-built building
is the British Ambassador and it is typical in a region like that
to have some staff who are directly employed by the Foreign Office,
but others who are brought from DfID, from the Treasury, from
Customs & Excise and so on and that arrangement would apply
in Baghdad as well.
Q107 Mr Maples: I think I am right
in saying that the international Doha aid programme is something
like $18 billion this year and for the next, I do not know how
long, two or three years. Oil revenues are expected to run at
about $15 billion a year from this year on. These are enormous
sums of money in a country whose GDP per head is, I think, around
$3,000, 60 billion for the total. We are talking about aid programmes
of a level which could prove, it seems to me, to be extraordinarily
inflationary. I wonder if you have thought about that and how
you plan to make sure that this money is spent in a way which
. . .
Mr Straw: Inflationary within
the country?
Q108 Mr Maples: Yes.
Mr Straw: It could have an inflationary
effect. So far there has been a surprising degree of economic
stability in the country. There was a currency transfer which
took place without any publicity at all internationally because
it had gone off so smoothly. Again I could be wrong about this,
but I am pretty confident about the economic management and plainly
if you inject too much demand into a country which cannot be met,
then you could get inflation, but a lot of these aid programmes
are, to a degree, self-limiting because most donors do not just
provide cash, but what they are doing is providing direct assistance
for progress and if there is not the capacity to implement the
programme, the programme will not happen.
Q109 Mr Maples: But those programmes
have never been entered into, a lot of them involve construction
work of one sort or another.
Mr Straw: Yes, but bear in mind
that one of Saddam's legacies was huge under-used capacity inside
Iraq. Estimates vary about levels of unemployment, but it is almost
certainly around 50 or 60 per cent, so in no sense is it an economy
working at full capacity.
Q110 Mr Maples: No, but if you expand
the demand side too fast and you find the supply side not keeping
up with it, you wind up with inflation all over the place. I just
think these are very large sums of money and I hope this is an
area that, in administering these programmes, we and the United
States will take on board.
Mr Straw: I entirely accept that
point.
Q111 Mr Olner: Foreign Secretary,
I just wonder if you could perhaps explain to the Committee what
your views are and what relationship you think there will be between
the United Kingdom forces, Iraqi forces and other coalition partners
after July 1?
Mr Straw: The precise status of
forces after 30 June has not yet been finalised, but again it
will be similar, though not the same, to that which obtains in
Afghanistan where the sovereignty of the nation is vested in the
Government for the time being. We are there in support and there
will be various bilateral and multilateral agreements for the
multilateral force. These have not yet been pinned down, Mr Olner.
Q112 Mr Olner: That will be pinned
down and determined by a new Security Council Resolution by the
UN?
Mr Straw: There have to be clear
arrangements for security post-30 June, which arrangements have
to have been put in place some time before because all members
of the coalition need, on behalf of their own forces, to know
the circumstances in which the forces can be present, to include
things like powers of arrest, rules of engagement and so on. These
things have not yet been pinned down, but they will be before
30 June.
Q113 Mr Olner: I am just trying to
get a feel, Foreign Secretary, about who will determine how many
forces there will be?
Mr Straw: That is again partly
a matter for coalition partners, but partly collaboration with
the Iraqi Government. It is worth bearing in mind that the overwhelming
majority of Iraqis are content to have coalition forces present
for the time being. Obviously they have the same aspirations as
everybody else in that they want to take over the running of their
own country and be responsible entirely for their own security.
That is gradually happening. The numbers of police and security
personnel are actually advancing pretty fast and, as you will
know, we have got the police training facility in Basra and also
we have got the training facility in Jordan and active steps have
been taken to expand both the numbers and the capacity of the
Iraqi army. There will come a point when coalition forces are
not needed, as happened in Afghanistan, but in the interim, although,
for sure, nobody likes having external forces in their own country,
everybody, apart from Islamic terrorists and Saddamists, understand
that it is in their interests for us to be there.
Q114 Mr Olner: Finally, Foreign Secretary,
given that we are training the new security forces for Iraq, when
do you think they will reach a figure where we will be able to
sort of say, "Yes, we can now leave"? How long a timescale
do you have in mind?
Mr Straw: I cannot give you an
exact timescale.
Mr Sawers: No, I would not like
to give a precise timescale.
Q115 Mr Olner: Would you like to
give us an imprecise one?
Mr Sawers: The training for the
Iraqi Civil Defence Corps has gone ahead very quickly and we are
now close to the target of 36 battalions that we sought. The training
of the army, a fully professional army, which Iraq has not had
for many years, is going to take considerably longer and that
is not a matter of months to achieve that. The training of the
police, I cannot recall, but we can write to you with the exact
figure[1],
but the numbers of police going through training is increasing
month by month. We have 1,500 a month coming through the Jordan
facility and a roughly equivalent figure coming through the facilities
inside Iraq itself, but these are just basic training of course
and there will be a constant need to upgrade the quality of this
training year on year. Therefore, in a sense the task is never
completed, but we aim over time to reduce the level of our forces
commensurate with the rising capacity of Iraqi forces.
Q116 Mr Chidgey: Foreign Secretary,
I would like to ask you some questions about the Interim Government,
the elections and the transition following on from points Mr Maples
has raised. In fact, just to pick up on one point, you talked
about Iraq's reputation of stability or relative stability, quoting
Eden at one stage. You might be interested, just for the record,
in a quote from The New York Times of rather earlier vintage
of last week where they were talking about the now postponed,
sadly, Arab League Conference due to take place yesterday and
they picked up the point that the Iraqi delegation was to be led
by a Shi'ite Muslim cleric in a remarkable break from the past
and I think that we should bear that in mind because that is a
particularly important issue. We are of course aware that the
Shi'ite Muslim clerics have already tried to have changes made
to the transitional law arrangements which was of course of great
concern to the UN last week. Can I ask you, therefore, has there
been any progress on the annex to the transitional law which,
as we know, is to cover the structure of the interim government?
Mr Straw: We know discussions
are continuing, but there is no final product on that. As you
probably know, Mr Chidgey, Mr Brahimi and his colleagues are now
taking a very active part in developing that. The only thing I
would say about Shi'ite clerics is one of the many terrible things
that happened under Saddam was the complete disenfranchisement
at any kind of level of the Shia part of the general population.
One of the first things which the coalition did was to ensure
that the Shia were a majority inside the Iraqi Governing Council,
so they formed 13 of the 25 members, but the Shia are not monoliths,
no more monoliths in Iraq than they are in Iran. It happens to
be their religion in the same way as some people are Catholics,
some people are Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Protestant.
It identifies them, but it does not mean for a second that they
all take the same view and this particular Shi'ite you are talking
about perhaps would have represented Iraq because he happened
to be Chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council for this month.
Q117 Mr Chidgey: It was put to us
in Washington, meeting our counterparts there, that there is still
some concern about how the constitution of Iraq will come out
of the wash, so to speak, as we go through the transitional phase.
It was put to us that if it did turn out to be a constitution
which did not recognise the democratic principles and equal rights
for women, the voting rights and human rights that we would subscribe
to, it would be extremely difficult in the United States to keep
the armed forces of the United States in that country for the
period necessary. That is how it has been seen in political circles
there. Would you agree with that? I know it is a hypothetical
question.
Mr Straw: Politics is indeed about
hypotheses, so I do not usually retreat into the excuse, "Well,
that's a hypothetical question", but I think there are very
good reasons for not going down that particular avenue. So far,
so good. Just to get to the transitional administrative law has
been difficult and, as colleagues here will know, there appeared
to have been agreement on Friday, it appeared to come apart on
the Saturday and finally it was put back together on the Sunday.
The crucial thing about the transitional administrative law, as
opposed, for example, to the 15 November agreement, is that all
25 members of the IGC[2]
signed up to it and agreed it in a way that they did not to the
original decision made on 30 November, so despite different ethnic
minorities and sometimes sectarian tendencies, there has up to
now been a recognition of the need for a consensus and that consensus
has included a very forward recognition of the rights of women
inside the politics of Iraq, and I may say more forward-looking
than happens in almost any European country that I can think of,
including the United Kingdom.
Mr Sawers: There was just one
point on the constitution which both you, Mr Chidgey, and Mr Maples
have raised about the constitutional convention maybe going off
the rails in some way. There are provisions within the transitional
administrative law which set out a series of rights which are
agreed between all the political parties who will be the dominant
players in any constitutional convention and those rights are
embedded in that law and not subject to change. When the constitution
is finally agreed at the political level within the convention,
it is then put to a referendum and if there is a two-thirds majority
in any three governments in Iraq against that constitution, then
that referendum fails. Therefore, there are several protections
built into this constitutional process and it is not just assertion
or judgment that Iraq will not end up with the sort of constitution
you are concerned about, but it is also represented through law
that they have passed and the level of agreement they have already
reached amongst Iraq's political leaders on the fundamental principles
which will be reflected in the constitution.
Q118 Mr Chidgey: On the process and
progress on establishing the framework for elections in Iraq,
we are all well aware of the sort of data that you need to be
able to have a proper election and there are also a lot of similar
problems in Afghanistan which they are going through now. How
convinced are you, Foreign Secretary, that the necessary preparations
can be made in time for proper, fully democratic, fully involved
elections to take place in January 2005 at the latest?
Mr Straw: I am reasonably hopeful.
You can never say you are absolutely confident about these things
until they have happened. The UN's adviser on elections, Mr Pirelli,
said this week with Mr Brahimi that they have a lot of experience
of this. Now, I am quite sure that when the actual process is
established, it will not be as smooth an operation as that which
we are used to, but it will, I hope, meet basic democratic standards.
Q119 Mr Hamilton: I just want to
move further into the role of the UN, Foreign Secretary, if I
may. In the Government's response to our last Report on the War
against Terrorism, the Government said, "We strongly support
a greater role for the UN in support of the transitional political
process in Iraq. We welcomed the visit in February of the Secretary-General's
Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi", whom, as you probably know,
we did meet in New York last week. On 11 March Sir Jeremy Greenstock
gave evidence to this Committee and said, "The United States
and the United Kingdom Governments are very open to a role for
the United Nations and indeed have invited that from their own
positions as having co-legal responsibility for the occupation
period." The electoral team, I understand, arrived in Iraq
last week on Friday and my question really to you is how significant
a role do you think a small UN team can actually play in Iraq,
given how small it is, and will it be able to achieve anything?
Mr Straw: Well, I am quite sure
it will be able to achieve a lot, bearing in mind that these people
are very experienced, so a lot they have been trying to advise
on is the architecture for running the elections. The other thing
I would just say about our response is that we are very keen indeed
on a wider United Nations role. Back in May and June there was
rather less willingness in parts of the US system in respect of
the UN and the UN itself were being very forward. The Secretary-General
responded very promptly with his appointment of the Special Representative,
but that all sadly changed when we had the bombings of the UN
headquarters on 19 August and since then the UN has been very
cautious indeed about an engagement, not because of any issue
of principle, but because they are worried for the safety and
security of their own staff, and it was a terrible, traumatic
period for them. Gradually they are providing more people as security
is absolutely paramount to this, but, interestingly, there is
now a very wide measure of agreement in the international community
with the UN that the UN should be allowed the maximum role which
they in practice can fulfil.
1 Please see further note submitted by the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office, Ev 68. Back
2
Iraqi Governing Council Back
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