9.6 |
27 June 2007 to April 2008
I thought,
in any counter‑insurgency, patience is key and I thought that
the UK in Iraq
had lost
its patience with Iraq and we were turning to other things like
Afghanistan,
so
I thought I was running out of time.”
226.
After being
briefed on the negotiations that were under way, Maj Gen Binns
told
the Inquiry
that:
“I had no
better idea – set against all the background I’ve just
explained, I couldn’t
think of
a better idea. So I stepped into it rather than stepped
back from it and
I thought
it was precisely the right thing to do.”
227.
On 20 August,
Lt Gen Rollo reported that:
“The
Presidency Council eventually sat this week amidst huge US
frustration at the
alliance
between the Kurds and Dawa/ISCI, which appears to have given Maliki
a
reason not
to compromise.”100
228.
Lt Gen Rollo
reported that security within population centres was clearly
improving
across
Iraq, cutting down Al Qaida’s freedom of movement. However, as bomb
attacks
in Ninawa
against the rural Yazidi population had demonstrated, “it is still
all too possible
for
terrorists to find poorly policed small towns … which remain
intensely vulnerable”.
229.
Lt Gen Rollo
reported that “Shia strategy and reconciliation” remained the
subject
of “fierce
debate” within Baghdad. The Iraqi Government’s committee on
reconciliation
had begun
to generate proposals for tribal outreach, amnesty and the
beginnings of
ideas for
an approach to OMS and JAM. Lt Gen Rollo commented:
“Whether
these ideas will come to anything, and whether they will do so
before
open
hostility between Badr and JAM occurs, is wide open to question,
but it is
nonetheless
of note that they are Iraqi ideas …”
230.
In Baghdad, Lt
Gen Rollo reported that concerns about the situation in Basra
had
been “less
loudly expressed this week” but that Gen Mohan had been visiting to
lobby
for
additional resources to ensure that his forces were fully equipped
when UK forces left
Basra City.
Lt Gen Rollo commented:
“Looking
ahead, the British handover of the Palace offers the opportunity to
refocus
effort both
within an evolving coalition concept of operations and a dynamic
and
constantly
shifting Shia political outlook. Our aim should remain to leave
Basra in the
best
possible nick that we can, but there might – and I emphasise might
– be more
room for
manoeuvre than we had previously feared.”
231.
Mr McDonald
gave Mr Brown a verbal update on progress towards
transition
in Basra on
the same day, based on an update note prepared by a Cabinet
Office
100
Minute
Rollo to CDS, 20 August 2007, ‘SBMR-I’s Weekly Report (266) 20 Aug
07’.
225