10.2 |
Reconstruction: July 2004 to July 2009
697.
On 16 January,
Mr Blair raised the issue of civilian/military structures in
Basra
during a
meeting with ACM Stirrup and senior officials from the FCO, SIS,
the MOD,
DFID and
the Cabinet Office.396
698.
ACM Stirrup
said he did not agree with Maj Gen Shirreff’s proposals. It was
too
late to
establish a JIATF; the UK’s focus should be on building Iraqi
capacity to deliver
assistance.
The military should not lead that work. Mr Dinham agreed. The
No.10 record
of the
meeting did not report Mr Blair’s view.
699.
Mr Dinham
reported separately to DFID colleagues only that Mr Blair had
nodded,
“seeming to
accept” the argument against a move to a military-led
reconstruction
700.
Maj Gen
Shirreff told the Inquiry:
“… it was
pretty clear to me that … looking over the period as a whole of my
time
in command
– we had a strategy that involved extraction rather than
necessarily
achieving
mission success. It was, in a sense, an exit strategy rather than a
winning
strategy. A
winning strategy was going to require significant additional
resources.”398
701.
Major General
Jonathan Shaw succeeded Maj Gen Shirreff as GOC
MND(SE)
in January.
702.
At the 25
January meeting of the ISG, Sir Nigel Sheinwald asked the FCO
and
Dr Marsden
for a note on the new civilian/military structure in Basra for
Mr Blair.399
That note
was issued on 2 March.
703.
Sections 9.4
and 9.5 describe the sharp rise in sectarian violence after
the
bombing of
the al-Askira mosque in Samarra in February 2006, and the
consequent
displacement
of Iraqi citizens along sectarian lines. The Government’s response
to that
displacement
is addressed later in this Section.
704.
Section 9.5
describes the discussions between UK and US senior military
officers
and
officials on UK plans for the drawdown of UK troops from MND(SE),
and continuing
US concerns
that UK plans were premature given the security situation in
MND(SE).
705.
Mr Etherington
completed his tour as Head of the Basra PRT in January
2007.400
Two PCRU
officials provided short-term cover as Head of the PRT between
January and
April
2007.
396
Letter
Banner to Siddiq, ‘16 January 2007’, ‘Iraq: meeting with
officials’.
397
Email
Dinham to DFID [junior official], 16 January 2007, ‘
Iraq’.
398
Public
hearing, 11 January 2010, page 7.
399
Minute
Cabinet Office [junior official] to Sheinwald, 26 January 2007,
‘Iraq Strategy Group, 25 January’.
400
Minute DFID
[junior official] to Private Secretary [DFID], 13 March 2007,
‘Iraq: Future of DFID’s
Presence
and Programme in Basra’.
309