9.6 |
27 June 2007 to April 2008
training
the Iraqi Security Forces, although they would re-engage if
necessary.” The
transition
would enable force levels to reduce from 4,500 to 2,500 by March
2008, at
which point
the future position would be reviewed.
678.
Sir Nigel
Sheinwald, Foreign Policy Adviser to Mr Blair until June 2007
and
subsequently
British Ambassador to the US, told the Inquiry that “we
deliberately chose
as a
government to accept that as we left Basra it wouldn’t be perfect;
it was going to be
rough and
ready and difficult. We developed deliberately this doctrine of
sufficiency.”315
679.
On 12
December, a junior official from the FCO Iraq Group sent further
advice to
Mr Miliband,
apparently in response to his request for “more detail on the
criteria which
we would
use to inform a decision to release the detained JAM leader
[JAM1]”.316
680.
The junior
official advised that “it is not possible to provide a
comprehensive
checklist
of things which would have to happen (or not happen) before we
decided to
release
[JAM1]”. Since the negotiations had always been based on the
understanding
that JAM1
would be released at some stage, the question was when to release,
not
whether to
release.
681.
The junior
official went on to explain that:
“… our main
aim is to sustain the JAM cease-fire against us, and to secure …
a
clear
commitment to certain principles. These would centre on
undertakings to end
violence
and intimidation against MNF, the ISF, other political parties, our
LE [locally
engaged]
staff and others, and to respect the democratic process
…
“We will,
as far as possible, seek to secure such a commitment from [JAM1]
before
he is
released. But the time to do so is limited. In addition, it may be
tactically
preferable
to release [JAM1] even if he has not given all of the commitments
which
we are
seeking, either as a mark of our good faith or to increase his
ability to deliver
his JAM
colleagues.”
682.
At the MOD’s
request, on 12 December the JIC examined the strength,
cohesion
and
prospects for the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.317
683.
The JIC judged
that the decreasing levels of violence in Iraq were due in
significant
part to a
“shift in the priorities of some Sunni insurgents who had reduced
attacks on the
MNF in
favour of working with it to resist AQ-I as part of the
US-sponsored ‘Concerned
Local
Citizens’ groups (CLCs)” (see Section 12.1).
“II. Though
Sunni Arab insurgent groups remain divided by ideology,
regional
demographics
and local concerns, factions of several groups are trying to
work
315
Public
hearing, 16 December 2009, page 99.
316
Minute FCO
Iraq Group [junior official] to Jenkins, 10 December 2007, ‘Iraq:
[NAME OF OPERATION]’.
317
JIC
Assessment, 12 December 2007, ‘Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency:
Nationalists and Jihadists’.
307