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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’.
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