Top British team given mission to end Iraq chaos

By Anton La Guardia

LONDON: Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s best-known diplomat, will become the most senior British political authority in Baghdad and lead a high-powered team to help redress what many see as a chaotic post-war administration of Iraq.

Sir Jeremy, 59, was due to retire this summer after five years as Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, where he waged a strenuous diplomatic campaign to win support for the war in Iraq.

But Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that he has agreed to take on one of the most delicate assignments for the Government - acting as “colonial administrator” to rebuild Iraq and re-create a government in Baghdad.

A formal announcement is expected this week. Two months after the downfall of Saddam Hussein, many British officials are dismayed by the inability of the United States to restore the semblance of a working administration for Iraq.

One Whitehall source has described the arrangements as “shambolic”. Another spoke of the “so-called administration”.

Sir Jeremy, a fluent Arabic speaker, will be working under the chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer. He abruptly replaced the retired US general Jay Garner, who was regarded as having failed to rise to the job.

Below them, another Briton, Andy Bearpark, an expert in humanitarian work and reconstruction, will replace Maj-Gen Tim Cross, one of three deputies to Gen Garner. Mr Bearpark, a former private secretary to Margaret Thatcher from 1986 to 1989, is currently serving as the senior official in the UN administration in Kosovo.

David Richmond, a diplomat who served in Baghdad in the 1970s and now a senior British official dealing with the European Union’s common security policy, will also be sent to Baghdad.

The appointments are meant to demonstrate Britain’s seriousness in rebuilding Iraq and, more important, its desire to devise an “exit strategy” by establishing a credible local government.

“Our interest is in getting out as soon as possible,” said one senior British source. “It will take about two years, give or take a year.”

There is nervousness in Whitehall that Washington is planning a much longer presence, inspired by Gen Douglas MacArthur’s seven-year rule in Japan after the Second World War.

“The lesson of the British experience in Iraq from the 1920s is that we should not overstay our welcome,” said a British source.

Sir Jeremy is believed to have been sceptical in private about the war, but is seen as having played an impressive role in the build-up to the conflict and has worked well with US officials.

He helped secure unanimous support for UN Security Council resolution 1441, which gave Iraq a “final opportunity” to comply with inspections. The allies said this provided a legal basis for military action, though they failed to secure a second resolution explicitly authorising force.

Sir Jeremy will take over from John Sawers, Tony Blair’s former foreign policy adviser and now ambassador to Cairo, who was sent to Baghdad as a stopgap measure to back up Mr Bremer. He is due to take over next month as political director of the Foreign Office.

But it is not clear exactly when Sir Jeremy will take over and for how long he is expected to stay in the post. British officials regard Mr Bremer as a vast improvement on his predecessor, but are still frustrated by the slow progress in restoring normality.

The political process has come to a halt since Mr Bremer scrapped carefully laid plans to convene a Baghdad conference to select an interim Iraqi administration.

A British official said: “The irony is that the Americans are in this situation because they refused to let the UN take charge, on the grounds that the UN was not up to it.” —LDT

Iraq ‘has 3 weeks to avoid falling into chaos’

LONDON: Iraq needs a transitional administration within three weeks if it is to avoid a descent into chaos, the most prominent Iraqi leader acceptable to all sides told The Independent last night.

Adnan Pachachi, a highly regarded former Iraqi foreign minister who is expected to play a big role in a transitional Iraqi administration, criticised the heavy-handed US sweeps that have cost more than 100 Iraqi lives, calling them “an overreaction’’. He said the Americans felt “very vulnerable and afraid’’.

Mr Pachachi, 80, may be the only prominent opponent of Saddam Hussein who all sides are prepared to work with. He said the Americans were coming round to the idea of an Iraqi transitional administration with real authority but with the US and Britain as occupying powers. “The Iraqi people are impatient,’’ he said. “They want an Iraqi government as soon as possible. The Americans can shift responsibility to it.’’ Given the embarrassing failure of the US authorities in Baghdad to restore living conditions even to the low level enjoyed by Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, the option of giving some power to Iraqis is an one that clearly has its attractions for the US.

Mr Pachachi wants an interim administration to be set up within three weeks to prepare the way for elections and to draw up a constitution. —Independent

Army vehicles stoned

FALLUJA: British military vehicles were stoned in the southern city of Basra on Sunday as 10,000 people took to the streets to demand self-government.

Led by prominent local Shia clerics, the crowd chanted threatening slogans such as “Answer our demands or you will regret it”. Last month the British disbanded the town council and installed in its place a committee of technocrats chaired by a senior British military commander. British officers, who met the organisers on Sunday, promised to give an answer by tomorrow to demands to set up an administrative council and a consultative council. One cleric, Sheikh Khazrej Saadi, who was at the forefront of the protest, told the crowd: “We do not believe their promise but we will wait until Tuesday. Then we will take action.”

British forces have worked hard to establish good links with the local community but the demonstration was an example of the increasing resentment of the occupation, fuelled by non-payment of salaries, poor security and the perception of heavy-handed military operations.

Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister who returned last month after more than 30 years in exile, said mass arrests, interrogations and gun battles inflamed such sentiments. —LDT

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