Carne Ross – who now runs Independent Diplomat, but who used to be a Foreign Office diplomat based at the UK Mission to the UN until he resigned in protest at the decision to go to war in Iraq – gave evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry last week; here’s his testimony.

Carne comments in an email to me and others (quoted with his permission) that:

Before I testified, FCO officials refused to give me access to all the documents I requested.  They also pressured me – apparently on behalf of the Cabinet Office – to delete references to some of the most egregious documents including those directly illustrating how the government exaggerated the WMD case (I refused, though I agreed to a couple of insignificant redactions at FCO request).  It was not a pleasant experience nor was I left feeling that Chilcot et al are equipped for the task of dismantling a well-constructed infrastructure justifying the government’s decisions. 

Chilcot’s panel has largely been offered a narrative that war was more or less unavoidable because Iraq was escaping from sanctions and containment was collapsing.  There is some truth to this, but there is also an alternate account – namely, what the Foreign Office actually believed at the time.  The testimonies of other witnesses showed clearly that many are painting a picture at odds with that evident in the internal policy documents and, secondly, that the panel is not forcing them to reveal the true picture, and instead letting them proffer their account without much challenge.

Tediously therefore, for these reasons, the fight for full revelation and the truth must continue.  My main conclusion is that the answer lies in more or less full disclosure of the relevant documents (as no less than the Deputy Prime Minister seems to have suggested).  Chilcot instead seems to be proposing partial disclosure when requested by witnesses.  This is in no ways adequate.

See also this by Chris Ames in the Guardian.

Okaay:

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.

The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

From the Nation, who also have the full sworn depositions – in which it just goes on and on. Such as:

“Mr Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar [sic], the warriors who fought the Crusades.”

“Mr Prince generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade … [including] on Mr Prince’s private planes.”

The other deposition goes on,

“When I first arrived in Baghdad, I was asked to assist with unloading bags of dog food into the Armory. As I unloaded the bags of dog food, another Blackwater employee opened the bags and pulled out weapons from the dog food. Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq.”

See also this.

At the REEL Iraq festival, the question is: “Has Iraq turned a corner?” In the chair, Rob Edwards kicks off asking the audience whether they think things in Iraq are getting better or worse. A few optimists but – in general – pessimism prevails. So on to the panellists… are they optimistic or pessimistic? (more…)

I was at the Invest in Iraq conference yesterday, being heralded by Lord Mandelson as a “new chapter” in Iraq’s history. I wondered if the timing was planned – the UK unveils a big conference to attract private investment into Iraq, the same day it pulls its troops out of Basra…out with the troops, in with the bankers! – but maybe that’s cynical.

It was an impressive event – the main hall at the Landmark Hotel, which seats around 500, was completely full, with people being turned away. Prime minister Al-Maliki and several other ministers gave a strong message: Iraq is moving from a centrally-planned to a free market economy, and it wants to move very quickly to provide jobs and services to the economy. ‘Otherwise’,  as the suave deputy PM Barham Saleh put it, ‘we will be voted out at the next election.’

One of the key talking points was the negotiations now going on between the government and around 30 foreign oil companies, for the rights to develop Iraq’s enormous oil reserves. This will be the first major post-war private investment into the country, and the deal that really kicks off the country’s post-war reconstruction.

Apparently the negotiations are going well, though I heard mixed reports about what the government is demanding – some said a 51% stake in projects, others a 75% stake, others that they may allow foreign companies to take a controlling stake in projects, which would be fairly unheard of in most emerging markets, but the government needs money to stay in power, the price of oil is low, so it’s not in as strong a bargaining position as say the Kremlin was in 2007, when it ‘re-negotiated’ several 90s era deals.

Hopefully the Iraqi government will build some flexibility into deals, so that it will get a greater share of profits if and when the oil price rises.

The other question was the reconstruction of the electricity sector. Apparently, it’s now back to pre-war output levels, which means the country receives on average 14 hours of electricity a day. Improving this will be key to the government and economy’s success.

It’s a daunting task. One businessman I spoke to, who’s advising on the sector’s reconstruction, said output needed to be quintupled to cope with the rising energy demands of Iraqis. Western private investment could be persuaded into that sector, according to some bankers I spoke to, but it would need western government support, because unlike the oil sector, electricity revenues cannot be secured offshore, so there’s all the local legal risk for big electricity investments.

That support could come in the form of export credit agency (ECA) guarantees. Such ECA guarantees are quite normal for big infrastructure projects in emerging markets, and in today’s low liquidity market, it’s essential if public-private deals are going to get done. Otherwise, governments have to finance deals off their own balance sheet, which Iraq’s government cannot yet afford to do. So ECA coverage would seem to be essential for the reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure.

But here’s the rub – not a single western government provides any export credit agency coverage (ECA) for project finance in Iraq. Not the US, not the UK, nothing.

Many bankers I spoke to said they are willing to put alot more money into the reconstruction of infrastructure, but they would need ECA coverage to do so.

I was really shocked to hear we don’t provide any ECA coverage for the country. All that talk of nation-building, and according to Hugh Sykes of the Today show, all Basra has to show for it is a UK army-constructed fish market.

There’s a strong economic motive for providing ECA coverage for private firms to help re-build Iraq. And, I would argue, there is also a moral argument for it.

At the moment, however,  Iraq is apparently ‘too risky’ for ECA coverage. But if western governments are not prepared to risk their money in Iraq, how ever are they meant to persuade private companies to do so?

The world may be in deep trouble, but Barack Obama is still stumbling around trying to staff up his government – testimony to a crazy appointment system and a domestic political environment more toxic than AIG’s balance sheet.

Much attention has been focused on Treasury’s failure to confirm enough staff to have anything sensible to say about the London Summit – but there are problems all round the world, with few Ambassadors in their jobs. 

Take the farcical situation in Iraq, which,  as I saw on a recent trip, desperately needs US civilian agencies to step up a gear as the military draws down.

You’d think that everyone would be desperate to get an ambassador in place to replace Ryan Crocker. But no – politics have intervened, with John McCain leading an especially boneheaded charge. It’s got so bad that top military brass are letting on that they’re thoroughly pissed off:

Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support [Christopher Hill's] confirmation proceeding swiftly. 

Opposition to the Hill appointment has been led by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ),Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Brownback has called Hill’s past dealings with Congress over North Korea “evasive and unprofessional.” In a joint statement last week, McCain and Graham wrote that Hill had a “controversial legacy” on North Korea, and added, “The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither.”

Since the previous ambassador, Ryan Crocker, left the job Feb. 13, Odierno has complained of doing double duty: serving as the commanding general and the de facto ambassador.

The power vacuum in Baghdad comes at a critical juncture in Iraq’s transition, sources noted. The U.S. mission is becoming increasingly focused on political stabilization and economic development over military missions; Arab-Kurd tensions are rising in the north; struggles for dominance within and across sectarian groups are heating up in the aftermath of January’s provincial elections; the Baghdad government is facing tough budget choices due to declining oil prices; and national elections that will determine whether Iraq can consolidate its democracy are due by year’s end.

Keeping a lid on such political tensions is “crucial to consolidating the security gains from the surge,” a Washington Iraq hand said, “yet the advocates of the surge want to slow down the process of getting an ambassador to Iraq.” [...]

If this drags on, Democrats may look to turn the tables on the Republican senators, who have argued that Iraq was so central to U.S. national security. “Why are they dicking around and not putting an ambassador in there if Iraq is so important?” the Senate Democratic foreign-policy staffer said.

It’s a point the generals are quietly saying among themselves, if not yet publicly.

I know that Washington really only cares about Washington, while the right is settling in for a decade long tantrum. But I wish they’d at least pretend they give a damn about everybody else…

In Small Wars Journal, Sergeant Michael Hanson laments the weight of the equipment that a US marine carries to keep himself safe. 40 pounds of body armour, plus a pack that can weight twice as much again (at a total of 120 pounds or 54 kilos, that’s like lugging Jennifer Lopez around wherever you go).

The consequences are predictable:

This weight limits their speed, mobility, range, stamina, agility and all around fighting capability. They can’t go out far and they can’t stay out long with all of this gear. It is simply too much. Combat patrols are typically four hours, and even that short amount of time is exhausting. Our Marines are being consistently outrun and outmaneuvered by an enemy with an AK, an extra magazine and a pair of running shoes.

Sergent Hansen believe that the flight to security  (“all the best equipment for our soldiers”) – ends up making soldiers less secure. You’ll find a similar sentiment in General Petraeus’s admirably concise counterinsurgency guidelines. Walk, is one of his directives. You can’t commute to this fight, is another.

But where does this leave civilian agencies? I doubt there is a single British or American embassy in the world that hasn’t seen dramatically increased security since 9/11. Many now resemble prisons.

Aid agencies, meanwhile, operate from fortified compounds in a growing number of countries, while the Iraq operations of some international NGOs are said to have hidden their use of armed guards from their own head offices. Both struggle against the prospect of an ‘armed humanitarianism.’

Petraeus calls on soldiers to live among the people, deepening their cultural understanding and ability to navigate informal networks, through prolonged and regular face-to-face contact. Diplomats, of course, need to do the same.

He advises them to “understand how local systems are supposed to work – including governance, basic services, maintenance of infrastructure, and the economy-and how they really work.” That’s the mission of development workers.

I am not trying to make a glib point here. Soldiers have the means to defend themselves (and to prevent the kidnaps that, once amplified by the media, can be strategic game changers). Diplomats and aid workers do not.

But how can civilian agencies deepen engagement with populations, while responding to growing insecurity? And what will they do if they find that – like the overloaded marine – security measures are eroding their ability to do their job?

“A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret,” reports Congressional Quarterly. “But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.”

The leak came from Peter Hoekstra, “a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.”

Best twitter reaction: “Me in Baghdad. That’s Rep. Hoekstraover my shoulder, head-down cause he’s tweeting our location.”

Earlier in the week, Charlie talked about the Tories’ weakness on foreign and defense policy. In many ways, he gave voice to a view felt across the British foreign and defence community. That the Tories do not have a serious and detailed set of national security policies that can be turned into government action. The contrast to the Obama administration is stark. The Democratic President has been able to populate his administration with America’s finest foreign policy thinkers, all of whom have thought deeply about what a Democratic foreign policy should look like.

The Tories are not the only ones blame for the dearth of policy thinking. The British system of government militates against party-based subject-mater expertise. Parties are meant to develop the broad strokes of ideas, which will then be developed and implemented by officials if they enter government. It is therefore very difficult for the Opposition to attract experienced foreign policy thinkers. The pay is low and the rewards are not as attractive as in the U.S. The most a future British Prime Minister can offer is junior ministerial portfolio, working to a senior politician whose background may not be well-suited for a security-related job.

But one issue can be parked at the Tories’ door. Having canvassed a wide section of the London-based foreign policy community, the one issue that keeps coming up time and again is the Tories’ euro-scepticism. As one senior (and decidedly euro-sceptic) thinker told me: “The Tories are rowing back on the pragmatic NATO-EU policy that Malcolm Rifkind developed when he was Defence Secretary.” A widely-respected senior military commander told me only two days ago: “It’s as if a veil descends across their faces when Europe comes up. They don’t even want to engage. But this is not about a European army; it’s about being able to work with allies.”

(more…)

A few days ago, I did a post on the UK government’s current horizon scanning exercise – part of the process leading up to its second National Security Strategy – in which I suggested that “the really stand-out risk that barely got a mention in the events I attended was the possibility that serious erosion of states’ capacity and legitimacy [will undermine] their ability to respond to all the global trends that we were discussing”. 

As regular readers will know, that observation comes straight out of the writings of ‘fourth generation warfare’ theorists like William Lind, Martin van Creveld and John Robb.  But what may come as more of a surprise is the interesting revelation that Kaiser Wilhelm II made a similar point yesterday in his birthday conversation with Lind*:

“My generation of kings and emperors were fixated on the age-old contest between dynasties. Would the houses of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern defeat those of Romanoff and Savoy or the other way around? We could not see the paradigm shift welling up all around us, the onward rush of democracy and equality and socialism and all the rest of that garbage. What we needed was an alliance of all monarchies against democracy. Instead we wiped each other out, putting the levellers in charge everywhere, to the world’s ruin.”

“Does that hold any lessons for our time?”, I asked.

“From Olympus, the picture could not be more clear,” His Majesty replied. “As we were mesmerized by dynastic quarrels, so your politicians cannot see beyond the state. They think only of states in conflict. Will America be threatened by China? Should India go to war with Pakistan? Is Iran a danger to Israel? They cannot see that states are now all in the same, sinking boat, just as all the dynasties were in 1914.”

“What should states then do?”, I enquired.

“Form an alliance of all states against non-state forces, what you call the Fourth Generation,” the Kaiser answered. “The hour is late, and the state system itself has grown fragile. That is the lesson of America’s quixotic war in Iraq. You destroyed the state there, and now no one can recreate it. That is what will happen almost everywhere when states fight other states. But none of your leaders can see it, because they, too, are time-blinded. It is the human condition.”

* Since you ask: in addition to being one of the top experts around on counter-insurgency and fourth generation warfare, William Lind is also an ardent Prussian monarchist.  Consequently, he marks the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II (“my reporting senior and lawful sovereign”) with a column each year in which he records a conversation with that leader’s ghost.  Previous editions are highly recommended – e.g. here and here.

Chances are you’ll already have seen media coverage of Generation Kill – HBO’s outstanding new mini-series based on Evan Wright’s book on his time as an embedded correspondent with a US Marine Corps reconnaissance battalion as they invaded Iraq. The series comes from David Simon and Ed Burns, the creators of The Wire (here’s an audio interview with Ed Burns, Wire fans).  Lest you haven’t already sampled the extensive selection of clips on YouTube, here’s a small sample to whet your appetite:

Book and series alike both give close-up perspectives on the failures of counter-insurgency doctrine that typified the early Iraq campaign.  Even then, it’s clear that the more thoughtful marines portrayed in Wright’s account become steadily more aware of the hearts and minds dimensions of their campaign – especially in the case of Lt. Nathaniel Fick, who led the platoon in which Wright was embedded.  Fick has since left the USMC for the Center for a New American Security, where he’s now co-authoring research with long-time 4th Generation Warfare expert John Nagl. (more…)

As everyone waits to see what Obama plans to do about reforming foreign assistance in the US, back here in Britain change is in the air too: the Conservatives are coming clean about what they really think about DFID, the Department for International Development.

For a while now, there have been whispers that the Tories don’t really buy into the idea of an independent DFID – and that perhaps (gasp!) they might be considering merging it back into the Foreign Office, where it resided until 1997. Well, following last week’s Independent interview with Conservative aid spokesman Andrew Mitchell, we can put that notion to rest: “We are very committed to DFID continuing as an independent department of state”, says he.

So, a ringing endorsement of DFID, then?  Er, not quite.  Here’s the full context:

The shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said DFID had begun to encroach on the work of other departments and to come “perilously close” to setting its own foreign policy, a role he said should be reserved for the Foreign Office. He said the Foreign Office will be given much greater influence over the use of overseas aid should the Tories win the next election …

“There are times when DFID comes perilously close to pursuing its own foreign policy and that is not right,” Mr Mitchell said. “Foreign policy is decided by the government and the Cabinet, led by the Foreign Office, and DFID should not be an alternative to this. We are very committed to DFID continuing as an independent department of state. But we would make it more of a specialised development department and a little less like an aid agency,” he said.

That left me wondering just which specific instances Mitchell was thinking of in arguing that DFID was coming close to having its own foreign policy.  Iraq? Afghanistan? Climate change? (Thinking that Paul Wolfowitz might not be such a great idea for President of the World Bank?) Sadly, we don’t know.  Earlier today I called his office to ask him to elaborate, but he declined to say more.

This is a shame, on two counts. First, because it’s a cop out.  For the Opposition front bench spokesman on international development to argue that the Department he shadows has come ‘close to pursuing its own foreign policy’ is a serious claim – and one which he ought to be prepared to substantiate.  To fail to do so leaves him open to accusations of offering soundbites rather than reasoned argument.

More fundamentally, though, it’s a shame that Andrew Mitchell wouldn’t elaborate because this debate needs to be had.   (more…)

In last month’s New Atlantic, James Fallows had a fascinating interview with Gao Xiqing, Chief Investment Officer at China’s sovereign investment fund, and the man responsible for a significant chunk of China’s huge holdings of American dollars.

Gao – who Fallows dubs one of the US’s new banking overlords – thinks Americans need to learn some humility and fast.

“The simple truth today is that your economy is built on the global economy,” he says, “and it’s built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don’t you come over and … I won’t say kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money.”

The US should disentangle itself from expensive overseas conflicts, Gao believes, raise its diplomatic game, and – above all – tell its citizens to get saving as part of a “long-term, sustainable financial policy.”

It’s all well and good, but maybe Fallows should have pushed Gao a little harder on whether China’s own financial policy is sustainable. After all, despite recent appreciation, the yuan remains substantially under-valued against both the dollar and the euro – the main reason why the Chinese has ended up holding so much Western debt.

Gao’s comments on the dollar are somewhat contradictory (and reflect all the ambiguity of China’s own dollar position). On the one hand, it defends its status as a reserve currency. The US is still the most viable and predictable market, he says. But on the other, Chinese investment in the dollar is widely unpopular at home. According to Gao, China’s citizens ‘hate’ its support of rich Americans (“people eating shark fins”) at the expense of “poor [Chinese] people eating porridge.”

More significant than public pressure, perhaps, is Gao’s belief that the dollar is highly likely to lose value over the short to medium term (with a corresponding appreciation for the yuan). This will wipe billions of Chinese reserves (reserves that have only been built up through consumption foregone) – while challenging China’s export-led growth model:

We are not quite at the bottom yet. Because we don’t really know what’s going to happen next. Everyone is saying, “Oh, look, the dollar is getting stronger!” [As it was at the time of the interview.] I say, that’s really temporary. It’s simply because a lot of people need to cash in, they need U.S. dollars in order to pay back their creditors.

But after a short while, the dollar may be going down again. I’d like to bet on that! The overall financial situation in the U.S. is changing, and that’s what we don’t know about. It’s going to be changed fundamentally in many ways.

Unravelling these imbalances seems certain to be ugly. Reading George Cooper’s book, The Origin of Financial Crises, on a plane the other day, I was struck by strong parallels between today’s economic woes, and a crisis we have heard little about recently – the ‘Nixon Shock’ that led to the end of the Bretton Woods system. (more…)