CONFIDENTIAL 77 HE CJ Treadwell CMG British Kabassy Abu Dhabi MID 223/03 12 July 1972 (79) Refers TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR THE UAS (E171) (73) MiD 223/203/01 Thank you for sending us a copy of the Embassy's Note No AD/36/72 of 28 June notifying the tax authorities of the new polsey. On the assumption that the UAE authorities do not dissent, we are now taking steps, as we are required, to surrenier the estimates provision of $200,000 for the Erant-ineid, 2. o answer the point in Julian Walker's letter 9/3 of 27 June, the reason why paragraph 2 of our Modev 007 to Abu Dhabi excluded the tentative idea of a TA-financed water resources survey was simply that, as the BDD report Itself made it clear, it was too early at that stage to be able to do more than note this as a possibility for consideration when we could have some idea of the terms of reference and the 14kely cost. We were not therefore able to confirm that we were ready to go ahead with such a survey. We have now seen a copy of Sparkes's letter of 31 May to alker but we shall have to await the further letter promised in John Rowley's 2241 of 28 June before we are able to see clearly what might be involved. 3. Could I take the opportunity of this letter to put to you a question which has been raised here in consequenoe of what was said in the section referring to the pucial States Development office at paragraph 7 of your despatch of 12 way headed. "UAK = 9 (of which we have just seen the print. We will be sending a copy to UNDD but meanwhile Rowley can perhaps refer to the Beirut mbassy's copy. The question is whether the way in which the development machinery surrounding the TSDO was hastily dismantled should cause us either (a) to drop the idea of any TA other than ad hoc, or (b) to try to use our willingness to provide a sizeable amount of ca as a lever to persuade the new UE authorities to set up a proper development organisation as being the only guarantee that money spent by us will be sensibly applied. 4. For myself I would think that, in effect, ve have already opted for the first course in the sense that we have been aiming to identify and stimulate individual TA requests where we could be assured that our money would be well spent, and that even if, for convenience, we talked of a TA programme in the UAE, for practical purposes this is not likely to be more than the sum of a series of individual activities by reason of the pecularities of the structure of the De and the relations between its component states. If, however, CONEIDBIAL
