The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
On 1
February, Dr Marsden sought to provide context to the figures
behind murder rates in
“Anecdotal
evidence from Basrawi contacts and some other sources of
information
suggest
that levels of intimidation of Basrawis by JAM and other militias
remain high.
Yet crime
figures quoted in the 31 January DOP paper suggests that the
reported
murder rate
fell sharply in the second half of 2006.
“Confusingly
there is no single collation point for recording crime in Basra.
There are
currently
two sets of crime figures in use: those produced by the PJCC
(jointly run
by the IPS,
IA and MNF) and those produced by the criminal statistics
department
of the IPS.
The IPS figures are based on crimes reported weekly by police
stations
to the
criminal statistics department in Police HQ. The PJCC figures are
based on
emergency
calls received from members of the public and (sporadic) radio
reports
from
individual police officers on the ground. They do not take account
of police
station
reports. Both sets of figures are incomplete because they do not
include tribal
murders (in
which the police do not get involved), many cases of family
violence and
crimes
committed by police officers themselves (a significant omission as
many of the
murders in
Basra are actually committed by the police themselves, notably the
death
squads in
the Serious Crimes Unit and certain other units).
“The
reported murder and kidnapping rates quoted in the DOP paper are
based on
PJCC
figures. These show that the murder rate rose from around 50 a
month in early
2006 to
over 100 a month in the second quarter … declining to 30 in
December 2006.
The IPS
figures show a similar trend in the first half of the year, with
the murder rate
peaking at
over 100 a month in April‑June 2006, but with a much less marked
decline
in the
second half of the year (to 80‑90 murders a month in the last
quarter of 2006).”
1343.
On 13
February, MOD officials provided a paper to DOP on how best to
balance
military
effort across Iraq and Afghanistan (see Section
9.5).1238
The MOD
said that
current
plans were that, following re‑posturing up to six UK military sub
units1239
and
three
battlegroup headquarters would be available for ISF training.
Specifically:
•
one company
devoted to training the Iraqi Army at the Divisional Training
Centre;
•
one company
to provide a “flying” MiTT to monitor and mentor the 1st
and
4th Brigades
of 10th Division;
•
one company
to support FCO‑led Police Training Teams, based at the
PJCC;
•
up to two
companies to provide training and assistance to the DBE
in
border‑related
operations; and
•
a company
based at Basra Palace (until August) available to
periodically
conduct
training of the Iraqi Army.
1237
Letter
Marsden to Aldred, 1 February 2007, ‘Basra: Weekly
Report’.
1238
Paper MOD,
13 February 2007, ‘Iraq and Afghanistan: Balancing Military Effort
in 2007’.
1239
The Inquiry
estimates that those sub units would each contain around 100
people.
366