The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
16.
Summing up the
discussion, Mr Brown said that the central UK focus would
be
accelerated
training of the 14th Division, preparations for provincial
elections, progress
on handing
control of Basra Airport to Iraqi control and economic
reconstruction.
Decisions
on troop numbers would be taken in the context of completion of
these tasks.
17.
Mr McDonald
produced a note on troop levels in Iraq for Mr Brown on 2
May.3
He advised
that the UK would need to retain around 4,100 troops in southern
Iraq for the
next six
months to complete the key tasks it had agreed. Since these were
higher force
levels than
originally planned, the job of training the 14th Division should be
completed
a few
months sooner than planned, in January 2009.
“We’ll need
to think about how we assess 14 Div’s readiness; we do not
want
to leave
this solely to the US; they may be tempted to use that
responsibility to
delay us.”
19.
Mr McDonald
advised that it should be possible to begin drawing down forces
from
January
2009 onwards. The MOD had identified 3,500 as the critical mass of
troops,
below which
they could not provide force protection for themselves. The MOD did
not
favour
handing over tasks piecemeal to the US before achieving key
objectives, both
because
“this would look like the UK admitting it couldn’t get the key
tasks done” and
because the
US had indicated that it would not have the capacity to take on
additional
tasks
before the end of the year. Consequently:
“We should
therefore aim for a rapid drawdown of combat forces in southern
Iraq
from 4,100
to a much smaller niche contribution over the first six months of
2009.”
20.
Mr McDonald
recommended a further statement to Parliament on force levels
in
Iraq before
the summer Recess, without going into specific timescales or
numbers.
In the
meantime, he would discuss the proposals with Mr Stephen
Hadley, US National
Security
Advisor, as part of the process of “sensitising” the US to the UK’s
plans.
21.
In an email
covering Mr McDonald’s advice, Mr Brown’s Private
Secretary explained
that
Mr Cavanagh was “also doing some work to see whether the
numbers can be
pushed any
further”.
22.
Lieutenant
General John Cooper, Senior British Military Representative –
Iraq
(SBMR-I),
reported on 5 May that Gen Petraeus had returned to Iraq “content
in that
he has no
difficulty with the UK national position and appreciates the
reasons behind
it”.4
He would
look to the UK to “deliver on its commitment on MiTTing 14 IA Div
[see
Section 12.1],
the BOC [Basra Operational Command] and on the economic
line”.
To achieve
the last of these, Lt Gen Cooper suggested that the time had
come for a
“properly
staffed Basra Office in Baghdad”.
3
Email
Fletcher to Brown, 2 May 2008, ‘Iraq Troop Numbers – Note from
Simon’.
4
Minute
Cooper to CDS, 5 May 2008, ‘SBMR-I’s Weekly Report (299) 5 May
08’.
384