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The Report of the Iraq Inquiry
The security situation after British withdrawal
1410.  The Governor of Muthanna province was assassinated on 20 August, the second
Shia governor to be killed that month.1293
1411.  On 20 September, Maj Gen Binns stated:
“Reporting from multiple sources indicates that the security situation is improving;
IPS and IA units are conducting joint operations in the city … and LOs [liaison
officers] from the BOC [Basra Operations Command] are now working in the
PJCC. Basrawis seem reassured by this new security profile but remain concerned
that militias are using the ceasefire period to reorganise and resupply. Of course
criminality and gangsterism remain endemic.”1294
1412.  On 1 October, ahead of a visit to Iraq, Mr Brown was briefed by a junior official
that there had been “some worrying high profile assassinations of religious and police
figures” and a car bomb which had killed three people in recent weeks.1295 Support by
local politicians for Gen Mohan and Maj Gen Jalil was described as “sporadic”.
1413.  On 2 October, Mr Brown told journalists in Baghdad:
“What we have been trying over these last few months also to build up the Iraqi
Security Forces … we are now in a position where there are nearly 30,000 Iraqi
Security Forces [in the South]. So what we propose to do over these next few
months is to … maintain a facility for re‑intervention if necessary, but at the same
time we play a greater role in training future security forces. I believe that within
the next two months we can move to Provincial Iraqi Control, and that is the Iraqis
taking responsibility for their own security in the whole of Basra. I believe that the
30,000 security forces that are being trained are capable of discharging these
responsibilities for security …”1296
1414.  On 7 November, Acting ACC Michael Colbourne, Chief Police Adviser from March
2007 to April 2008, wrote to the FCO in London to articulate Maj Gen Jalil’s expectations
for UK support with police training.1297 Maj Gen Jalil intended to reform the Basra IPS by:
“restructuring the force to deliver five Emergency Battalions” (only one was
currently formed);
“rebuilding the NIIA (retaining 50 of the current staff and dismissing the rest)”;
“rebuilding the CID (retaining 50 of the current staff and dismissing the rest)”; and
1293  BBC News, 20 August 2007, Roadside bomb kills Iraq governor.
1294  Minute Binns to CJO, 20 September 2007, ‘GOC HQ MND(SE) – Southern Iraq Update –
20 September 2007’.
1295  Minute Cabinet Office [junior official] to Brown, 1 October 2007, ‘Iraq Visit: 2 October 2007’.
1296  Transcript Sky News, 2 October 2007, Live at Five with Jeremy Thompson;
BBC Radio 4, 2 October 2007, PM.
1297  Letter Colbourne to FCO [junior official], 7 November 2007, ‘The Policing Mission in Basra’.
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