Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq lobbied the country's Prime Minister on oil contracts for BP just three months after leaving government service, newly released official documents have revealed.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who as Britain's ambassador to the United Nations had made the case for invading Iraq, served as UK special representative to Iraq from September 2003 to June 2004. Soon after, he met Iyad Allawi despite having been warned against developing business links with Iraq by the watchdog responsible for ethical oversight on the activities of former civil servants.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments had specifically asked Sir Jeremy not to visit Iraq on business, nor have commercial dealings with companies there, for six months after taking up the post of special adviser with BP in June 2004. However, three months later Sir Jeremy and the then BP chief executive Lord Browne, met Mr Allawi during his visit to London.
An internal email by an official in the Department of Trade and Industry said: "BP Meeting: in the end, BP decided they wanted a "private" meeting (Allawi, Lord Brown [sic], Sir Jeremy Greenstock and Mike Daly, President BP Middle East) so I dropped out."
The heavily redacted memorandum, by "Richard", claimed that Lord Browne was privately keen to do business in occupied Iraq while publicly denying that was the case. The company was particularly keen to develop Rumaila, near Basra, Iraq's largest oilfield.
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