Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq and Reshuffle.
Iraq
Asked for further detail about the Foreign Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement on Iraq today, the PMOS said that it was an update on meetings at Camp David last week. It was unlikely to contain many surprises.
Questioned about the Defence Secretary’s Statement to the House of Commons later today, the PMOS said that Mr Hoon would update the House on where we were in the military campaign. The difficulty, as Mr Hoon had pointed out in Cabinet, was that the maps that were constantly being drawn up kept changing as events moved forward on the ground as steady advances were being made.
Asked about the Prime Minister’s visit to Aldershot Garrison and RAF Lyneham this afternoon, the PMOS said that he would be having private meetings with the families of service personnel who were serving in the Gulf. He would also be making further visits of this kind in the future.
Asked if the British Government was concerned that the US appeared to want to ‘run the show’ in the post-conflict administration in Iraq, the PMOS referred journalists to President Bush’s words following the Azores Summit on 16 March and also in his joint press conference with the Prime Minister at Camp David last week in which he had talked about the need for UN involvement. Questioned further, the PMOS said that everyone was in agreement about the need to establish as quickly as possible a representative government in Iraq run by, and for, the Iraqi people themselves. How we reached that point was still being discussed. We believed it was important for those discussions to be based on pragmatic questions and pragmatic progress towards achieving that goal. They should also be characterised by common sense rather than by grandstanding. So far that had been happening. Some of the comments we had seen from other countries, such as Germany, in the last twenty-four hours or so, in addition to what was being said to us behind the scenes, showed a clear willingness by the international community to work together. Consequently, if people were treating this issue in the same way they had as regards the second Resolution, they were clearly wrong to do so.
Asked for a reaction to reports that Britain was looking for another UN Resolution on reconstruction, the PMOS said that it would not be helpful to provide a running commentary on the discussions currently taking place. We were satisfied with the progress being made - and would continue to be made as long as those discussions remained discreet and private.
Asked repeatedly why he was so reluctant to provide details relating to important information about current events, such as the six British officials who were working alongside former US General, Jay Garner, and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs (ORHA), the PMOS pointed out that we were in an evolving situation. The mistake was to think that the current picture was the final result. Obviously it wasn’t.
In answer to questions about the role of Jay Garner and ORHA, the PMOS said that to focus on this narrow issue at a time when we were making such progress on the military, diplomatic and humanitarian fronts was, frankly, to overlook the main thrust of what was going on on the ground in Iraq. Day by day, hour by hour, Iraq was being freed. We were also seeing the Iraqi people learning to live without the fear ingrained after two and a half decades of Saddam and his regime. Clearly that fear was not going to evaporate overnight. Nevertheless, there was evidence to show that it was already happening. Questions relating to post-Saddam issues were, of course, perfectly legitimate. Equally, however, it was legitimate for us to say that it was more helpful to formalise and agree the policy in the first instance, rather than give a running commentary on how it had been arrived at. Put to him that all these issues - the military, diplomatic, humanitarian and post-conflict planning - were all inter-dependent and that the British Government, rather than Washington, should inform people about British activity in all these spheres - particular as regards the latter, the PMOS said that we had good reason not to provide a running commentary on every single discussion or meeting that took place. Suffice to say that when conclusions were reached, we told people about them. We had not yet reached the point of concluding discussions about post-Saddam issues and, in our view, it was therefore premature to publicise British actions at this stage. Asked if we would inform Washington that it was not helpful to brief journalists on what the British Government was up to, the PMOS said that he had no intention of getting drawn into a discussion about conversations between the UK and US Governments. Our overall approach remained as he had set out.
Asked what was wrong with the British Government briefing journalists on the work of six British officials who were working alongside Jay Garner and ORHA, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our policy to comment on the work of individual officials. Indeed, we believed that more progress was made as a result of that judgement.
Asked if the Prime Minister would be satisfied with a UN endorsement of a US-run interim administration or if he was looking for something more, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had underlined the need for UN involvement many times in the past. His view had not changed. The fundamental point, however, was the fact that we were talking about an interim Iraqi administration which would make the transition as quickly as possible to a representative government run by, and for, the Iraqi people themselves. Asked if we were ‘embarrassed’ about the interim Iraqi administration given our tendency to underline our ultimate goal - a representative government in Iraq - while being unwilling to talk about the transitional phase, the PMOS said that we were not in the least ‘embarrassed’ about the interim Iraqi administration. We were only embarrassed about the fact that people were overlooking the bigger picture and only focussing on one narrow point. Put to him that it was the job of those reporters on the ground in Iraq to focus on the big picture while it was the role of political correspondents to talk about political aspects of the situation, the PMOS said that it was everyone’s role to reflect the big picture and not look for difficulties before it was necessary to do so.
Put to him that opinion polls showed that the British public’s greatest reservation about the war was the US’s attitude and that it was therefore perfectly legitimate for political corespondents to pose the questions they were posing without being ‘batted off’ by being told that ‘our boys’ were doing a great job in Basra and Baghdad, the PMOS said he resented the suggestion that talking about our forces in the field could be seen as ‘batting’ people off. It most certainly was not. It was important to acknowledge the work being done on our behalf by British forces. Asked which news organisation wasn’t already doing that, the PMOS said that he was simply picking up on the phraseology of the question. His colleague had answered questions about the work of ORHA in detail at yesterday afternoon’s briefing. He was simply making the point that to focus on this one narrow point was to miss the big picture, namely the progress being made on the ground in Iraq. He took the opportunity to reprise the information provided by his colleague yesterday regarding the work of ORHA. There would be three phases following the conflict. Phase one would come immediately after the conflict, when the military would be in de facto control working with the US Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs (ORHA). ORHA was a US body, which would help deliver humanitarian aid and re-establish public services, infrastructure and civil administration as soon as possible. It was headed by General Jay Garner. There was nothing secret about this. There were plenty of details on the US Defense Department’s website. There were around half a dozen British officials working alongside the US, both in Kuwait and in Washington. Their objective was to ensure that UK views on the post-conflict situation were clearly registered. The US has made clear that ORHA would be temporary. It would work towards an interim authority as soon as possible so that Iraq could be run by, and for, the Iraqi people. Phase Two would consist of an interim authority. There might be lots of questions about the nature of this, but we were unable to answer them at this stage as discussions between international partners continued. However, the bottom line was that that the interim Iraqi authority was, itself, part of the transition to Phase Three, which was a fully representative Iraqi government so that Iraq would be run by the Iraqi people themselves. That was where we were at the moment. Questions relating to what might happen afterwards were premature.
Questioned about the timescale for the interim Iraqi authority, the PMOS said that just as we would caution journalists against predicting the timeframe for the military conflict, it was similarly wrong to jump ahead and talk about timescales post-conflict. We had to respond to the reality on the ground. It was simply not possible for people to sit here and try to predict where we might be in six months’ time given the constantly evolving situation. Put to him that, had we had heeded our own advice, we would never have briefed journalists on the second-Resolution-that-wasn’t, the PMOS pointed out that there was a difference between discussing an issue where the reality was settled and the reality which depended on the outcome of a conflict which was still ongoing.
Asked whether the Iraqi people would be given powers to award or reject contracts to reconstruct Iraq, the PMOS repeated that it was premature to talk about what might happen several months hence. We would see where we were once the conflict had come to an end. People should recognise what had been achieved on the ground. An edition of Radio 4’s The World This Weekend a couple of weeks ago had been almost like listening to a Monty Python sketch given the presenter’s most strenuous efforts to think up every difficulty possible, expose it and then say with such glee that it could pose a big problem to the allies. The picture on the ground was different. Remarkable progress was being made, although we were obviously being very careful not to overstate that fact. In the same way, we were being very careful not to dismiss any of the difficulties or details which might be raised during the ongoing discussions. We were simply suggesting that it was better for each one to be addressed individually as we came to it, rather than risk getting too far ahead of ourselves.
Asked if he would agree that it was ‘remarkably irresponsible’ to start a war - which was being depicted as a ‘war of liberation’ - without any agreement as to what that liberation should look like, the PMOS pointed out that we were, in fact, agreed on what liberation should look like. We were agreed on the three phases, as well as the need, as quickly as possible, for a representative government in which the Iraqi people could run their own affairs. That was a firm vision of the future to which both we and the US had signed up, in addition to agreeing that the UN should have a role to play in that.
Asked to confirm reports in US newspapers that British oil executives were being recruited to run Iraq’s oil fields, the PMOS reminded journalists that both we and the US Administration had underlined many times that all oil profits would be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people and would be held in a trust fund for them.
Questioned about the ‘Battle for Baghdad’, the PMOS took the opportunity to point out that while the ‘Battle for Baghdad’ might make a good headline, it wasn’t strictly accurate. The reality was that there would be a series of engagements and battles. How many, or what the outcome of each might be, was impossible to say at this stage. The important thing to recognise, however, was that it was becoming increasingly clear that there would be only one final outcome.
Reshuffle
Asked when the new Leader of the House would be announced, the PMOS said that we never commented on reshuffle questions. Put to him that his colleague had said yesterday that an announcement would be made ’shortly’, the PMOS said that obviously, then, the timeframe had become still shorter in the intervening period.
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