The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
417.
The official
continued:
“Basra City
remains a difficult place with JAM carrying arms on the streets
with
impunity …
But JAM would have been worse if they had unambiguously
bombed
coalition
forces out of the city …
“The risk
is the further weakening of already-weak Iraqi state control in
these
southern
provinces. HMCG [the British Consul General in Basra] is at sea
because
his
instructions to promote and develop the democratic structures of
the new Iraqi
state are
out of touch with what is happening on the ground. The aim of any
Basra
political
conference has to be to bridge the gap between the necessary deals
done
with the
militias and the ineffectual provincial council, to say nothing of
the governor.
Everyone
has a sense that this process should culminate with fresh
elections, which
would be
when the militias such as JAM would theoretically swap their
military power
for
political power, as Muqtada al-Sadr now appears to want. But it
remains unclear
how we will
reach this point. In such circumstances, we view the idea of a
political
conference
as a sensible stopgap.”
418.
In his weekly
report on 23 September, Lt Gen Rollo wrote that after returning
to
Iraq Gen
Petraeus told him that he thought his visit to London had
been:
“… a great
success: the mood was quite different from February. Everyone
was
on side;
there was a commitment to Iraq, and a common view on tasks
over
419.
The MNF-I had
formed a working group to look at the conditions for PIC and
the
tasks for
the UK military beyond that. Lt Gen Rollo’s view was that the UK’s
planning
focus
should be on:
•
clarifying
the mission and tasks anticipated for next summer in
Basra;
•
producing
force packages to carry out these tasks, with and without US
support,
recognising
that the US would have also substantially reduced numbers by
next
summer;
•
thinking
through the implications of events going better or worse
than
anticipated;
and
•
thinking
through the end-game and agreeing it with the US.
420.
Government
officials working closely with the military met JAM1 again
on
24
September and again discussed the security situation, prisoner
releases and
development
work.206
JAM1
reported that his engagement with the UK had received
wider
endorsement from overall JAM command, who were interested in a
wider peace
agenda.
205
Minute
Rollo to CDS, 23 September 2007, ‘SBMR-I Weekly Report (271) 23 Sep
07’.
206
Email
government official working closely with the military, 25 September
2007, ‘[NAME OF
OPERATION]:
24 September meeting with [JAM1]’.
262