9.6 |
27 June 2007 to April 2008
458.
In their
45-minute bilateral meeting, Prime Minister Maliki told
Mr Brown that 2008
would be
the “year of reconstruction”.220
The Iraqi
Government was working towards
PIC in
Basra on 21 November, and hoped to announce that on 1 November.
Mr Brown
welcomed
this progress and emphasised the importance of following up
transition with
progress on
political reconciliation.
459.
An account of
Mr Brown’s visit to Basra Air Station by government officials
working
closely
with the military reported that Maj Gen Binns said “the situation
that he would
brief was
wholly dependent on … [NAME OF OPERATION] without which the
picture
would be
utterly different”.221
460.
The officials
judged that the FCO briefing attended by Mr Brown had been
“thin”
and
considered it:
“…
dispiriting to hear eager questions about the number of policemen
trained
from
McDonald and references to the ‘dividends of Op SINBAD’ [see
Section 9.5].
Clearly JIC
papers are not going where they should. The impression given of
a
Basra
growing to stability and majority through the wise tutelage of HMG
in its
various
forms was fundamentally mendacious. But less grotesquely so than in
the
post‑SINBAD
days.”
461.
Mr Brown
was briefed on the negotiations with JAM1, which made “no secret
of
the
fragility of the process”. Mr McDonald argued that the
reduction in hostilities was a
result of
the UK departure from Basra Palace. The officials believed that
their graphics
“elegantly
disproved this assertion”. The wider JAM cease-fire called by
Muqtada al-Sadr
had
“camouflaged and perhaps subsidised” the Basra
agreement.
462.
Mr Brown
told journalists in Baghdad that he believed:
“… within
the next two months we can move to Provincial Iraqi Control, and
that is
the Iraqis
taking responsibility for their own security in the whole of Basra
… And I
believe
that by the end of the year … a thousand of our troops can be
brought back
to the
United Kingdom …”222
463.
After
returning from Iraq, Mr Brown’s Private Secretary commissioned
advice from
the Cabinet
Office on:
•
how best to
support a Basra Investment Forum;
•
greater UK
resources for the effort on reconstruction and
economic
development;
•
whether the
UK should do more to support the clear up of Umm Qasr
port;
220
Letter
Fletcher to Forber, 3 October 2007, ‘Prime Minister’s Visit to
Iraq, 2 October’.
221
Email
government official working closely with the military, 3 October
2007, ‘PM visits Basrah
Air Station’.
222
Note, 2
October 2007, ‘Transcript of doorstep given by the Prime Minister,
Mr Gordon Brown,
in Baghdad
on Tuesday 2 October 2007’.
269