Downing Street Says

» Monday, January 15, 2007

Iraq

Asked if there was any reaction to the "botched hanging" in Iraq, the PMOS said that he presumed that the journalist was asking about the latest executions in Iraq. The PMOS said that in terms of the death penalty in Iraq, our position on the death penalty was well known, and we had made that position known to the Iraqi Government again since the death of Saddam Hussein. However, Iraq was a sovereign Government, and therefore had a right under international law to decide its own policy on the death penalty.

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with President Bush that the Iraq war had made the US, and therefore, the UK more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the PMOS said that the question was a very partial summary of what President Bush had said. We had always recognised that because of the threat of international terrorism, countries were at risk. The PMOS said that the threat was there before the Iraq war; 9/11 was before the Iraq war, the Bali bombs were before the Iraq war, as were other attacks around the world. The threat did not come about as a result of the Iraq war, no matter how much people tried to use the Iraq war as an excuse. It was not the root cause of terrorism.

Asked for further information regarding the Prime Minister’s meeting today with the Iraqi Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, the PMOS replied that they would discuss the latest plan, how we implanted it, and how we dovetailed what we were doing in Basra with that plan. The Iraqi Government had said today that it fully supported President Bush’s plan that he had announced last week.

Asked if people thought that President Bush had rejected the Iraqi Study Group’s (ISG) recommendations, the PMOS replied that he had answered the same question in detail last week. The ISG said that we should fully support the effort to increase the capacity of the Iraqi Government to take responsibility, and that was being done. It also said that we should put more effort into reconstruction. The plan announced a doubling of reconstruction efforts.

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» Monday, January 15, 2007

Iraq

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