9.6  |  27 June 2007 to April 2008

1017.  MND(SE) continued to focus on drawing as much US and Iraqi resource into

Basra as possible in order to take advantage of the “unexpected but very welcome

changes” that the Charge of the Knights had brought. Maj Gen White-Spunner’s main

concerns were ensuring that the Iraqi Police were “functioning again before the Iraqi

army re-deploys” (probably in six months’ time) and preventing the return of JAM

hardliners and Special Groups who had left the city.

1018.  Mr Brown visited Washington from 16 to 17 April for a series of meetings,

including with both President Bush and Senator Obama.

1019.  The day before travelling he was interviewed by Mr Jon Snow from Channel 4,

who pressed him on what continued purpose the UK forces in Iraq were serving.500

Mr Brown responded that “the idea we are not doing a useful job there is wrong because

we are actually training the Iraqi forces” and declined to give a timescale for the

withdrawal of UK troops:

“I am not going to give a time-scale, but what I do say [is] that the job we are doing

is an important one and the very thing that we have moved from combat to over

watch will mean that in future you will see Iraqi troops and the Iraqi police taking a

bigger role. That is the right thing to do, it shows the progress that has been made

that Iraqis themselves will gradually take responsibility for their own affairs and at

some point they will take full control of their own country again.”

1020.  President Bush and Mr Brown met on 17 April.501 On Iraq, ACM Stirrup and

Gen Petraeus would report to both Mr Brown and President Bush on troop numbers in

Iraq before the President visited Europe in June. Mr Brown suggested that close US

and UK consultation was needed on Basra and repeated his commitment to the troop

deployments he had previously described to the President.

1021.  Mr McDonald reported to the FCO that at dinner with Secretary Rice and

Mr Hadley on 17 April they had reached a common understanding that President Bush

and Mr Brown had commissioned Gen Petraeus and ACM Stirrup to “come up with

proposals for how to work together in Basra”.502 It was a shared assumption that the

US would remain in MND(SE).

1022.  Mr Brown met Senator Obama on the same day and discussed Iraq briefly.503

The Senator was reported to have been “mainly in listening mode” and interested in the

concept of overwatch but “underlined that his policy remained to draw down US troops”.

1023.  Before leaving the US, on 18 April Mr Brown delivered a Kennedy Memorial

Lecture on international relations, from the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and

500  Transcript of an interview given by the Prime Minister, 15 April 2008.

501  Letter Fletcher to Gould, 17 April 2008, ‘Prime Minister’s Bilateral with US President, 17 April 2008’.

502  Letter McDonald to Gould, 21 April 2008, ‘Rice/Hadley: MEPP, Iran, Iraq’.

503  Letter Fletcher to Gould, 17 April 2008, ‘Prime Minister’s bilateral with Barack Obama, 17 April 2008’.

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