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» Monday, May 22, 2006

Iraq

Asked if it was a risk to say this was a new beginning for Iraq given that the violence was likely to continue and put to him that we had had "new beginnings" before, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that first and foremost it was not us who was saying this was a new beginning, it was the representatives of the 12,191,000 Iraqis who had elected them. The reason it was a new beginning was that for the first time the Iraqis had a truly representative, democratically elected government which, as the Prime Minister said, was writing the next chapter in the history of Iraq. Furthermore, as the Prime Minister set out, if people were worried that their section of the community might be excluded, they could now lay those concerns to rest. Everybody was now represented on the Government. So people had a choice, they could join the politics, which was working, or they could continue with the violence. But as the Iraqi Prime Minister has made very clear, both publicly and privately, the Iraqi Government with the increasing ability of its forces would stamp hard on those who wished to continue with violence. So it was new era.

Briefing took place at 14:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Home Office

Asked if the Prime Minister was set against the idea of breaking the Home Office up into smaller units, the PMOS said that the situation was precisely as we had set out in the past. We had already moved the criminal justice element to the DCA. There was a natural synergy about having issues such as immigration and policing in the same department. Nobody was pretending that the issues were anything other than complex, as recent events had shown. However we believed that the synergy between the different parts outweighed the problems of having such complex issues in the same department.

Briefing took place at 14:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

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» Monday, May 22, 2006

Iraq

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