Another Loyal Public Servant Speaks Out

I have never heard of Andrew Bearpark, despite his charming surname. The reason for this is simple: Andrew Bearpark was "probably the Coalition Provisional Authority's central British figure". The Coalition Provisional Authority, you may recall, was the organisation set up by the Enlightenment Alliance to ensure that the Iraqi people didn't let liberation go to their heads, as little brown people sometimes will (see Hamas, democratic election of, among other things) and start bombing and shooting and becoming generally over-Islamic. As some of you may have noticed, the Coalition Provisional Authority failed resoundingly in this laudable function, and Andrew Bearpark has told the Guardian why: it was "a 'dysfunctional organisation' which almost completely ignored the British". Well, I suppose that would explain it.

To be fair, it is evident that Andrew Bearpark and the Viceroy of Mesopotamia, Paul Bremer, were operating at cross purposes. Andrew Bearpark mentions "looting on an industrial scale", but apparently believes that the troops were there to prevent it, rather than to facilitate the industrious activities of Halliburton and the rest. Andrew Bearkpark mentions "British attempts to be signatories to the formation of the CPA as a joint occupying power under the Geneva convention". The American position on the Geneva conventions at that time, expressed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, was that they were quaint and outdated. The British no doubt stood shoulder to shoulder with this position, but thought that a piece of paper should be scribbled on for form's sake. However, the Americans "brushed aside" our concerns: "Throughout its entire existence, CPA was a US government department and no agreement was ever signed between the British and the Americans, because the Americans refused even to consider it." This is certainly a surprise.

Andrew Bearpark concludes that "If we are going to take upon ourselves the right to invade people's countries and kill people - which is what we do with maybe the most laudable objectives - it puts an incredible moral responsibility upon us to do it as well as we possibly can." Andrew Bearpark is not interested in a "witch-hunt", by which he presumably means actually prosecuting anyone; but he thinks that "the absence of proper planning in Iraq" amounts to "criminal negligence". It has taken Andrew Bearpark rather a long time to reach that conclusion.