The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
The hardened
dining area was due to be completed by mid‑July, but contingency
plans
were being
put in place should IDF attacks prohibit use of the military
facility.
516.
Ministers
discussed security for civilian staff at DOP(I) on 11
May.341
Mr Benn
expressed
concern that hardened dining facilities were not yet
available.
517.
In his
valedictory report to Mr David Miliband, the Foreign
Secretary, on 16 August,
Mr Asquith
paid tribute to the work of LE and UK‑based staff.342
LE staff
had:
“…
struggled daily to our offices, in Baghdad, Basra and when we were
in Kirkuk,
through the
wreckage that Shock and Awe and subsequent decisions
produces.
They have
risked their lives. Some have lost them. All have lost a friend or
relation.
All have
suffered massive upheaval … I hope that … the decision will be the
right
one when
eventually Ministers address collectively how to provide protection
to
those who
supplicate us.”
518.
On UK‑based
staff, Mr Asquith wrote:
“By the end
of a tour in any one of our three posts in Iraq, an officer
experiences
what
elsewhere takes three or four years. Their professionalism and
fortitude is of
the highest
order. Their determination to secure a better future for Iraq, in
the face
of daily
frustration and barbarity, is a source of wonderment – particularly
against
a background
when resources and attention are being diverted
elsewhere.”
519.
In advance of
a Ministerial meeting planned for 19 July, FCO and MOD
officials
produced a
joint paper setting out the latest “assessments and plans on
security
transition
and the associated reposturing and drawdown of UK troops in
Basra”
520.
The paper had
been discussed, in draft, at the ISG on 9 July, where it
was
agreed that
the departure from the Basra Palace site and the Warren should
happen
521.
In the paper,
officials explained that the next key decision for Ministers was
the
timing of
the withdrawal from the Basra Palace site, the “most heavily
mortared and
rocketed
place in Iraq”. This was complicated for a number or reasons,
including the
impact on
the UK’s SSR effort in Basra, currently co‑ordinated from the PJCC,
where
100 UK
troops and seven UK police advisers were based. The threat to those
staff
if there
were no significant MND(SE) presence at the Basra Palace site would
be
impossibly
high because “there would be no quick way to get reinforcements to
the site
or to
evacuate UK personnel in an emergency”. Officials concluded that a
withdrawal
341
Minute
[DFID junior official] to PS/Secretary of State [DFID], 16 May
2007, ‘Information Note: Security
Update –
Iraq’.
342
Letter
Asquith to Miliband, 16 August 2007, ‘Iraq:
Valedictory’.
343
Paper FCO
and MOD, 12 July 2007, ‘Iraq: transition in Basra’.
344
Minute
Cabinet Office [junior official] to McDonald, 11 July 2007, ‘Iraq
Strategy Group, 9 July’.
336