The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
the sense
that the rough coalition of JAM, or the accommodation that JAM and
Badr
seemed to
have made there seemed to look reasonably steady and it was as
good
as it was
ever going to get, and, therefore, the decision was made to give it
PIC on
the basis,
not that that handed it over to the militia, but actually that it
was as good
as it was
going to get …”1403
1539.
On 19 April,
Mr Richard Jones, the British Consul General in Basra,
reported that,
at the
transfer ceremony for PIC, Dr Rubaie had described the
transition as “another
expression
of Iraqi will”.1404
1540.
Mr Jones
wrote that the handover was immediately overshadowed by an
IED
attack in
the north‑west of the province which had left two UK soldiers
dead1405
and
one
seriously
injured. He concluded:
“As we have
reported … Maysan has always been a tough, lawless place.
The
question is
whether the broad local balance can continue. It has held pretty
well
since the
de facto withdrawal of coalition forces (apart largely from the
border) and
the
violence last Ramadan.”
1541.
Maj Gen Binns,
in his evidence to the Inquiry, recalled ongoing concerns
about
post‑PIC
border infiltration:
“[Lt
Gen Odierno] ordered me to conduct operations on the border
with Iran in order
to disrupt
the flow of what he described as lethal aid … He was concerned
about the
border
crossing points and he was concerned about infiltration through the
marsh
area in
Maysan province.
“So from
September onwards, we started to conduct a series of operations
which
became
known as Operation CERTAIN SHIELD into the border
area.
“I think
they may have been effective as a deterrence, but we didn’t
find
1542.
Maj Gen Binns
went on to reflect that capacity‑building was a useful area
on
which to
focus:
“… a good
way of achieving what we needed to achieve was to develop
the
capabilities
of the Department of Border Enforcement … So we improved
our
relationship
with them.”
1543.
As with
civilian personnel (described in Section 15.1), there was no
single
continuous
record for the number of UK police officers deployed to Iraq. How
numbers
were
recorded varied considerably in relation to:
1403
Public
hearing, 11 January 2010, page 22.
1404
eGram
16055/07 Basra to FCO, 19 April 2007, ‘Maysan: Under Provincial
Iraqi Control’.
1405
Corporal
Ben Leaning and Trooper Kristen Turton.
1406
Public
hearing, 15 January 2010, page 29.
408