15.1 | Civilian
personnel
475.
At the ISG on
27 October, Mr Simon McDonald, FCO Iraq Director, reported
that
the
security situation in Basra had deteriorated to the point where Mrs
Beckett had
decided it
would be necessary to withdraw the majority of civilian staff from
the Basra
Palace
site.315
Mr Martin
Dinham, DFID Director Europe, Middle East and
Americas,
explained
that Mr Benn agreed with this view. Sir Nigel Sheinwald
confirmed that
Mr Blair
would be content to accept Mrs Beckett’s judgement on the
matter.
476.
On 29 October,
17 Iraqi interpreters working for a British company at the
police
training
college in Shaiba were murdered.316
477.
Mr Blair
was informed on 3 November that most UK staff had withdrawn
from
the Basra
Place site, leaving a core team of six political officers and 15
police training
contractors.
MND(SE) was working hard to reduce the threat from indirect
fire.317
478.
The wider
implications of the withdrawal are addressed in Section
9.5.
479.
On 16
November, Mrs Beckett informed DOP(I) that the withdrawal had
been
implemented
more quickly than envisaged because of security
conditions.318
480.
Mrs Beckett
told the Inquiry:
“… we had
our own internal advice and the relevant member of staff had
been
out to
Basra and taken a look at the situation and had come back full of
concerns.
Concerns
that were not totally shared by the people on the ground
…
“So Michael
Jay came to see me and told me that he was concerned about
the
welfare of
staff and we had quite a long conversation about it, and, of
course, both
felt that
this was absolutely paramount and that we had to consider what we
could
and should
do.
“In the
process of that consideration … we also took advice from the people
on
the ground
… they didn’t take quite such a grim view of the situation. They
felt that
there was
still a good deal they could contribute, that there were
adjustments that
they could
make, that the security situation could be improved and they wanted
to
481.
An IPU paper,
‘Basra: Objectives and Presence in 2007’, was prepared for
the
7 December
DOP(I).320
Mr Casey
explained to Mrs Beckett that the paper was intended
to share
FCO thinking with other departments, including the MOD, which had
been
asked to
produce a note in parallel on the UK military posture in Basra in
2007.
315
Minute
[Cabinet Office junior official] to Sheinwald, 30 October 2006,
‘Iraq Strategy Group, 27 October’.
316
Minute
Banner to Prime Minister, 3 November 2006, ‘Iraq Update &
Hadley Brief, 3 November’.
317
Minute
Banner to Prime Minister, 3 November 2006, ‘Iraq Update &
Hadley Brief, 3 November’.
318
Minutes, 16
November 2006, DOP(I).
319
Public
hearing, 26 January 2010, pages 7‑8.
320
Minute
Casey to Private Secretary [FCO], 1 December 2006, ‘Iraq: Future of
our Presence in Basra’.
329