Further memorandum from the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office
LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FROM
THE SECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, 18 JULY
2003
IRAQ: SECURITY
OF UK PERSONNEL
1. You might like a brief outline of the
security measures we have put in place for our staff in Baghdad.
These measures are essential to enable us to meet our duty of
care to our staff at a time when the threat is particularly high.
2. The British Office Baghdad has a Close
Protection Team from the Royal Military Police, and an Army platoon
to guard the compound. The Army will stay for as long as the situation
on the ground demands. Even when the security threat diminishes,
we will need to provide security for the perimeter of the compound,
in the absence of any local police protection that we could rely
on. We are therefore preparing a contract with a UK-based private
security firm to provide armed guards, probably ex-Gurkhas.
3. We also have 86 British civilian secondees
from a wide range of government departments working with the Coalition
Provisional Administration (CPA). I met many of them during my
visit to Baghdad and Basra two weeks ago. They are carrying out
crucial work to support the rebuilding Iraqi institutions. We
recently reviewed their security and concluded that we need to
reinforce their protection when they travel outside the secure
zone that the US military have established round the CPA compound.
We are providing armoured vehicles, armed escorts, a communications
network and a structure to manage these assets. The armed escorts
will be provided through a contract with a private security firm.
4. As with our previous exchange on the
possible use of private companies for close protection for counter-narcotics
work in Afghanistan (my letters of 10 March and 25 April[19]),
we believe that the use of private security companies is the best
way to provide essential security for our staff and thereby to
meet our political objectives in the region.
5. I know that your Committee, during its
recent session with Michael Jay on the FCO's Departmental Report[20],
urged us to submit a bid to the Treasury for funds to cover unavoidable
expenditure in relation to Iraq. We shall be doing so shortly.
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
July 2003
LETTER TO THE PARLIAMENTARY RELATIONS AND
DEVOLUTION DEPARTMENT, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, FROM THE
COMMITTEE SPECIALIST, 21 AUGUST 2003
IAEA
The Committee has asked me to write to the FCO
with the following question:
In connection with the Committee's inquiries
surrounding the Government's statement in its September 2002 dossier
that "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply
of significant quantities of uranium from Africa", the Committee
has received the following statement from the IAEA:
— "The IAEA based its conclusions
in its 7 March 2003 report to the Security Council on documents
that the IAEA determined were not authentic. These were the only
documents the IAEA received on that issue.
— "If there was any other evidence,
it would still be appropriate for the IAEA to receive it, in order
to verify its veracity.
— "The IAEA still has a mandate,
both under the NPT and under Security Council resolutions, to
ensure that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program, and the obligation
stands for countries to assist us with any information relevant
to our verification mandate."
Please would you explain to the Committee the
legal and policy basis on which the Government chose to give primacy
to maintaining the confidentiality of the countries supplying
the intelligence on uranium from Africa, referred to in the September
2002 dossier, rather than to its obligations under the relevant
Security Council resolutions to disclose this intelligence directly
to the IAEA?
The Committee would like to receive a reply
to this question by 1 September 2003.
Committee Specialist
Foreign Affairs Committee
August 2003
LETTER TO THE COMMITTEE SPECIALIST FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY RELATIONS AND DEVOLUTION DEPARTMENT, FOREIGN AND
COMMONWEALTH OFFICE, 8 SEPTEMBER 2003
1. Thank you for your letter of 2l August
(received here on 26 August) with the Committees question about
the supply of information to the IAEA concerning Iraq's attempts
to procure uranium from Africa.
2. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 requests
Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in
the discharge of their mandates. As the Committee will already
know, the information upon which the assertion in the Government's
September dossier was made came from the intelligence service
of another State. We have urged that State to pass that information
on, in the same way that we have encouraged all States to make
relevant information available to the IAEA.
3. The sharing of intelligence information
amongst allies plays a vital role in efforts to counter the threat
from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and is
central to the campaign against terrorism. To contravene long-established
conventions regarding the forwarding to third parties of information
provided to us in confidence would risk undermining the trust
placed in the United Kingdom by the international intelligence
community with the possible effect that they might in future withhold
vital information from us.
Parliamentary Relations & Devolution Department,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
September 2003
19 Not printed. Back
20
Twelfth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 2002-03,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2003, HC 859, Ev
1. Back
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