The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
during his
tight visit meant that Crocker left without seeing the British team
here.
His
conclusion that Baghdad needs to pay more attention to Basra may
yet help us
persuade
Maliki to act. But his perceptions may make early handover a harder
sell.”
779.
On 3 May,
Mr Blair’s Private Secretary told Mr Blair
that:
“The US may
be becoming more concerned about our own plans for Basra
…
The US will
see the timing [leaving Basra Palace in August] as
presentationally,
awkward,
given Petraeus’s planned testimony in the Autumn. They may also
have
concerns …
about the level of criminality and the difficult political
situation in Basra,
which they
would argue should delay PIC. For us, the two key issues are
firstly
the utility
of what our military are doing in Basra; and secondly the need to
free up
capacity to
deploy additional troops in Afghanistan.”426
780.
On 3 May, Sir
Nigel Sheinwald told Mr Blair that he had seen ACM
Stirrup
“privately”
and asked him, in light of the high April casualty figures and
recent comments,
including
by Maj Gen Shaw, whether he saw continuing military utility in the
UK’s mission
781.
Sir Nigel
informed Mr Blair that ACM Stirrup thought:
“We are
getting ‘close to the end’, but Jock [Stirrup] thought that our
presence would
continue to
be militarily useful at least until PIC and the closure of Basra
Palace.
Jock hopes
that we will be able to keep to the present timetable – PIC in July
and
BP [Basra
Palace] closure in August.
“At that
stage, we would come down from 5,500 to around 4,700.
“Jock saw
the military utility resting on the continuing need to train the
Iraqi
10th Division
(he did not talk about the Police, and I think the MOD now regard
them
as a busted
flush), anti‑JAM
operations and
capacity to re‑intervene.
“Thereafter
Jock thought that there would be at least a couple of
months when
we
could
re‑intervene effectively and continue to run anti‑JAM … operations
… [but]
once we
vacate the Palace … we would … lose our … situational
awareness.
“The autumn
would therefore be the decisive period …
“If by late
autumn the UK capacity to re‑intervene and conduct … operations
had
– as
expected – degraded, there would be a residual training/mentoring
role, but
that did
not warrant maintaining the force in its present shape. Jock
therefore saw
a
choice,
from around the turn of the year, between (a) a very rapid scaling
down
from 4,700
to around 500 (essentially a small military training team) in one
go and
(b) taking
it in stages … to around 4,000 in the first
instance
and then a more
426
Minute
Gould to Prime Minister, 3 May 2007, ‘VTC with President Bush: 4
May’.
427
Minute
Sheinwald to Prime Minister, 3 May 2007, ‘Iraq’.
146