9.6 | 27 June 2007 to April 2008

were “real, wide-ranging and deep-seated”, Mr Miliband and Mr Browne described

expectations that transition to PIC would be achieved within months, after a judgement

“based on the conditions on the ground”.

282. The article continued:

“To recognise that such challenges remain is not to accept that our mission in

southern Iraq is failing. Our goal was to bring Iraqi forces and institutions to a level

where they could take on responsibility for their communities. It could not create in

four years in Iraq the democracy, governance and security that it took Great Britain

and the United States centuries to establish.”

283. Maj Gen Binns told the Inquiry that, in August 2007, the UK considered it had

surged – “we believed that SINBAD was a surge of sorts” – and that “we had done what

we could in Basra at the time”.133 This left two alternatives:

“We could have stood and fought. We could have continued to do strike operations

at the rate that 19 Brigade were doing them, we could have done that. We would

have just had to endure, so we could have endured, we could have hunkered down

and we could have just taken it and waited for some form of Iraq‑wide impact of the

surge that the Americans were conducting.”

284. A few days later two senior former UK military officers, General Sir Mike Jackson

and Major General Tim Cross, were also quoted in the media.134 The roles they held in

relation to Iraq in 2003 are described in Section 9.1.

285. Gen Jackson characterised US post-invasion policy as “intellectually bankrupt”,

Maj Gen Cross considered it “fatally flawed”. Maj Gen Cross alleged that his warnings

about the possible descent of Iraq into chaos had been ignored by Mr Donald Rumsfeld,

US Secretary of Defense.

286. On 3 September, the longer letter on Basra’s future was sent by a senior

government official specialising in the Middle East to Mr Mark Lyall Grant, FCO Director

General Political.135 He reported that, at least for the moment, JAM1 appeared to have

the backing of the majority of JAM in Basra and its leadership in Najaf. Although the

negotiations on detainees were proving hard going, the senior official judged that JAM1

had invested too much of his personal capital in the process to withdraw, though he

could lose the trust of his constituents.

133 Private hearing, 2 June 2010, page 29.

134 AFP, 2 September 2007, Second British general bashes US strategy in Iraq.

135 Minute senior government official specialising in the Middle East (1) to Lyall Grant, 3 September 2007,

‘[NAME OF OPERATION]: negotiations with JAM – Basrah Palace’.

235