9.7 | May
2008 to October 2009
under NATO
auspices, would also continue and a small number of embedded
personnel
remained in
coalition HQ. Troop numbers would reduce to around 250 by April
2010.
395.
On 24 April
2009, the Military Adviser to Lt Gen Wall provided him with
briefing
about the
negotiations with JAM1 (see Section 9.6), to enable him to brief
Mr Hutton
“following
his query to DG Sec Pol”.160
The
briefing set out the background to the
operation
and described its objectives as:
“GOC
MND(SE). The
objective as seen by GOC MND(SE) was to split JAM into
pro
and
anti-Iranian elements to place into a majority those viewing Iran
(rather than the
coalition)
as the root cause of violence and instability in
Basra).
“SofS. At
the strategic level, the perspective was slightly different. 2006
saw a
steady
increase in the number of UK fatalities; by 2007, on average, three
UK
Service
Personnel were being killed each month. The focus was on reducing
these
attacks.
Further, at the end of 2006, there was a realistic prospect of 2007
being
the last
year in which our presence in Iraq would be authorised by a UN
Security
Council
resolution from which coalition forces drew their authority to hold
detainees.
In Jan 06,
there were 117 detainees held in the UK run facility in MND(SE).
Given
that the
vast majority of these detainees would have to be released anyway,
the
then
Secretary of State agreed that we should make a virtue out of
necessity by
negotiating
with Basra JAM to use the releases to persuade them to stop
attacks
on coalition
forces.”
396.
The advice
also reported how the negotiations were likely to be treated by an
Iraq
Inquiry, if
one were to be commissioned:
“The extent
to which [NAME OF OPERATION] would form part of an Iraq
enquiry
[sic] would
depend on the ToRs of the enquiry (public, private, dates covered).
It is,
however,
reasonable to assume at this stage that the operation would be
admissible.
In any
event, most elements of the operation are in the public domain;
this would
be unlikely
to stop the issue becoming one of a few high profile headlines in
an
enquiry.”
397.
In an email on
29 April, Mr Brown’s Assistant Private Secretary described
the
following
day as “a big day for Iraq”.161
Mr Hutton
was in Basra for the transfer of
authority
ceremony, Prime Minister Maliki was making his first formal visit
to the UK as
Prime
Minister, and a major Iraq investment conference would be held in
London. The
Assistant
Private Secretary told Mr Brown that Prime Minister Maliki was
“increasingly
well-disposed
to the UK”.
398.
Mr Prentice
described the “Invest Iraq” conference as the UK’s “headline
initiative
…
demonstrating in a practical way our desire for a new and
normalised bilateral
160
Minute
MA1/DCDS(Ops) to DCDS(Ops) & DG Sec Pol, 24 April 2009, ‘[NAME
OF OPERATION]’.
161
Email
Catsaras to Brown, 29 April 2009, ‘PM Maliki’s Visit –
Briefing’.
449