9.6 |
27 June 2007 to April 2008
Consulate
here grows daily. Apart from this entirely avoidable episode …
there is still no
perceptible
effort from them on the political track.”
292.
In a report to
Maj Gen Binns and the MIG the following day, a government
official
working
closely with the military explained:
“It was
with some difficulty that I focused [JAM1] on the issue of what
happens after
13
September (fortuitously more or less the start of Ramadan)
following proposed
release of
eleven more detainees. [JAM1]’s main request was that to delay the
next
batch of
releases until ‘Id al-Fitr would try the patience of his comrades:
would it
not be
possible to release a few each week or so? I replied that I hoped
that such
flexibility
would be feasible, but I could make no promises at this stage … I
said that,
in return
for these Ramadan releases, we would be looking for [JAM1] to
persevere
in his
efforts to rein in the violence. [JAM1] was almost dismissive,
implying that this
was a
given. He then expounded at length why our agreement had to be
about more
293.
The official
and JAM1 then discussed “what the end-state of the agreement
might
be”. JAM1
suggested that it was unlikely that resolution 1723 would be
extended and
that the UK
would have to release all its detainees anyway. If they were
released the
UK would
not appear to be a military occupying force but a social and
economic one, so
most of the
current points of friction between the people of Basra and MND(SE)
would
fall away.
JAM1 also considered it worth seeking to extend the agreement to
al-Amara
and
Nasiriyah. The record of the meeting concluded:
“A
difficult meeting in which the importance of the development agenda
to [JAM1]
became
apparent. It seems clear that if we wish to gain the maximum
benefit from
this
agreement we need to accelerate the process for delivering some
tangible
projects on
the ground.”
294.
In his weekly
report on 3 September, Lt Gen Rollo wrote that he had suggested
to
Gen
Petraeus that he would need to focus on three issues when he
visited London in
mid-September:
•
what
capabilities were required in Basra post-PIC until around April
2008;
•
how this
might evolve over summer 2008, including the potential for US
troops
to
reinforce Basra in the event of the Iraqis being overwhelmed;
and
•
clarification
of the long-term intent.140
139
Letter
government official working closely with the military to GOC, 4
September 2007, ‘Meeting with
[JAM1], 3
September’.
140
Minute
Rollo to CDS, 3 September 2007, ‘SBMR-I’s Weekly Report (268) 3 Sep
07’.
237