British troops carry out an evening patrol targeting smugglers at an oil plant in southern Iraq in 2003. Credit: David Cheskin / PA Archive/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. The
long-awaited Chilcot Report
was finally released today, examining the UK’s involvement in the Iraq War and
occupation. Unfortunately, on the most important question, the report’s
conclusions are all but silent: why did the UK go to war?
Chilcot
takes at face value the Blair government’s claim that the motive was to address
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and limits its criticism to mistakes in the
intelligence on WMD, and on insufficient administrative and military planning.
He shows a remarkable lack of curiosity about the political factors behind the
move to war, especially given the weakness (even at the time) of the WMD case.
Chilcot takes at face value the Blair government’s claim that the motive was to address Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Most
important of these is oil. Buried in deep in volume 9 of the 2.6 million-word
report, Chilcot refers to government documents that explicitly state the oil
objective, and outlining how Britain pursued that objective throughout the
occupation. But he does not consider this evidence in his analysis or
conclusions. Oil considerations do not even appear in the report’s 150-page
summary.
To
many people around the world, it was obvious that oil was a central issue, as
Iraq itself had nearly a tenth
of the world’s oil reserves, and together with its neighbouring countries
nearly two thirds. There was a clear public interest in understanding how that
affected UK decisions. Chilcot failed to explore it.
Section
10.3 of the report, in volume 9, records that senior government officials met
secretly with BP and Shell on at several occasions (denied at the time) to
discuss their commercial interests in obtaining contracts. Chilcot did not
release the minutes, but we had obtained them under the Freedom of Information
Act: they are posted here.
In unusually expressive terms for a civil service write-up, one of the meeting’s
minutes began, “Iraq
is the
big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there” (emphasis in
original).
Also
in that section, Chilcot includes references to several pre-war documents
identifying a British objective of using Iraqi oil to boost Britain’s own
energy supplies. For example, a February 2002 Cabinet Office paper stated that the
UK’s Iraq policy falls “within our objectives of preserving peace and stability
in the Gulf and ensuring
energy security”. A Foreign Office strategy paper in May 2003, which Chilcot
didn’t include, was even more explicit: "The future shape of the Iraqi oil
industry will affect oil markets, and the functioning of OPEC, in both of which
we have a vital
interest".
During the direct occupation of 2003-4, the UK consistently pushed oil policy towards the longer-term issue of privatisation, rather than the immediate rebuilding of the war-damaged infrastructure.
So
there was the motive; but how did the UK act on it? That same section 10.3
refers to numerous documents revealing the UK’s evolving actions to shape the
structure of the Iraqi oil industry, throughout the occupation until 2009. The
government did so in close coordination with BP and Shell. This full story – with its crucial context – was told in Fuel
on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq.
As
the UK’s strategy evolved with changing circumstances, two priority objectives
remain consistently emphasised in the documents: to transfer Iraq’s oil
industry from public ownership to the hands of multinational companies, and to
make sure BP and Shell get a large piece of that.
During
the direct occupation of 2003-4, the UK consistently pushed oil policy towards
the longer-term issue of privatisation, rather than the immediate rebuilding of
the war-damaged infrastructure. The government installed Terry Adams, a former
senior manager of BP, in Baghdad to begin that work.
British
officials knew their plans were not what Iraqis wanted. One document in 2004,
seen but not released by Chilcot, noted that the oil issue was “politically
sensitive, touching on issues of sovereignty”. Without recognising any
conflict, it recommended that Britain “push
the message on [foreign direct investment] to the Iraqis in private, but it
will require careful handling to avoid the impression that we are trying to
push the Iraqis down one particular path”.
British
officials actively pressed the oil issue on the interim government in 2004-5,
the provisional government in 2005-6, and the permanent government of from
2006. Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw wrote to Tony Blair in July 2005 setting out the
progress on those activities. He wrote that Iraqi oil “remains important for
the UK commercially and in terms of energy security. Foreign investment is
badly needed and we need to continue to support Iraq to create the right
framework for investment, while also supporting UK companies to engage”.
During
the December 2005 election, British Ambassador William Patey sought to pressure
candidates to accept passage of an oil privatization law as a top priority for
the new government. During 2006 and 2007 this law became the key focus of
British and US political efforts in Iraq. Forcing passage of this law became a
major focus of UK and US political efforts over the subsequent two years, and
was closely tied to the “surge” in troops that President Bush announced in
January 2007.
Attempts by Britain and the US to force a law through that legalised oil privatisation failed
Deep
in volume 9, when Chilcot refers to these British efforts, he presents them under
the veneer of normal diplomatic activity, neglecting the reality that the UK
and USA still had 150,000 troops the country, and had directly appointed the
interim government. The permanent government in 2006 was established through
elections the UK and USA had designed, and contested by the politicians they
had promoted. Terry Adams was even commissioned to draft the contracts that
would be signed with the likes of his former company.
In the end, attempts by Britain and the
US to force a law through that legalised oil privatisation failed. The law was
not passed, largely because of a popular Iraqi campaign against it. It was then decided to sign long-term contracts even
without any legal basis for doing so. Iraq´s
oil industry is largely now run – illegally – by companies like BP, Shell and
ExxonMobil.
Chilcot
has said he was not asked to judge
whether the war was legal. Yet in his failure
to examine the real motive for war, he has side-lined crucial evidence that
might tell us about the legality of the war and occupation, and the culpability
of senior UK officials, including Tony Blair.