The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1.
This Section
addresses:
•
the
conclusion of negotiations on the status of UK forces in
Iraq;
•
decisions
on the drawdown and withdrawal of UK troops;
•
the UK’s
objectives for its ongoing relationship with Iraq; and
•
assessments
of the UK’s legacy, particularly in Basra and the
South.
2.
This Section
does not address:
•
the UK
contribution to the reconstruction of Iraq and reform of its
security sector,
which are
covered in Sections 10 and 12 respectively.
3.
The Inquiry’s
conclusions in relation to the events described in this Section can
be
read in
Section 9.8.
4.
On 1 May, at
the request of the MOD, the Joint Intelligence Committee
(JIC)
assessed
the strength of those groups and networks which had historically
posed an
immediate
threat to Iraq’s stability, and the extent to which the Iraqi
Special Forces were
ready to
tackle those threats.1
5.
The JIC judged
that nationalist Sunni insurgents no longer represented an
immediate
threat to
Iraq’s overall stability. Sectarian violence had subsided and,
since the middle
of 2007,
many Sunni insurgents had refrained from attacking the Iraqi
Security Forces
(ISF) and
the Multi-National Force (MNF) in favour of working with them to
resist
Al Qaida
in Iraq (AQ-I).
6.
The JIC
assessed that 70,000 Sunnis had joined MNF-sponsored security
forces,
known as
“Sons of Iraq”. The JIC judged that their motivation for doing so
was “partly
financial
and partly born of a growing sense that AQ-I represents their most
immediate
threat –
plus recognition that MNF cannot be defeated and will eventually
leave Iraq
anyway”.
“Iranian-backed
Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) Special Groups are likely to remain
an
immediate
threat to the MNF. They are increasingly fragmented and are
unlikely to
have a
strategic impact on stability in Iraq without the support of
mainstream JAM.
Unless
faced with a common threat from ISF, the GoI or MNF, as recently in
Basra
and
Baghdad, such support is unlikely.”
1
JIC
Assessment, 1 May 2008, ‘Iraq Insurgency: The Hardest Nuts to
Crack’.
382