He took up the Ashraf file in an unconventional manner. It seemed that everything had been decided before he arrived in Iraq. Clearly he had already reached agreements with Iran, Maliki and the US, who were determined to use him as a tool for promoting their plan for the total closure of Ashraf and the internal relocation of the 3,400 residents. They had settled on a new location called Camp Liberty, a former US military base near Baghdad airport. Maliki, with the backing of Kobler, prevented the UNHCR interviews from going ahead in Ashraf and stated that interviews would only be possible in Camp Liberty. Here, it was proposed, the residents could be individually interviewed by UNHCR, registered as refugees and quickly flown out to countries of safety. The ‘revolving door’ strategy that I had lobbied hard for now seemed a reality. But first we had to assess the suitability of Camp Liberty and we had to convince the Ashraf residents to move there. I had received news of Kobler’s appointment in August 2011.
