Downing Street Says

Asked if it was fair to say that the Government did not support the introduction of Martial Law in Iraq in the light of the Prime Minister’s comments today during PMQs, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had underlined during the NATO Summit in Istanbul, the new sovereign Iraqi Government would decide its own security policy. Prime Minister Alawi had made clear that if that meant taking tough decisions, then so be it. However, the key difference between the past regime in Iraq and the new Government was the fact that the latter would take tough security decisions to secure democracy, not because they were acting in a tyrannical way.

Asked if the Government still intended to send additional British troops to Iraq, the PMOS said that we were expecting US General David Patraeus, who was leading the effort in terms of training Iraqis, to agree a rough medium term plan and timetable for Iraqi-isation of the security services with Prime Minister Alawi and the Multi National Force. This would dictate the strategic needs, as viewed by the Iraqis themselves. We hoped an announcement would be made before the end of July. Other decisions would have to fit in with that process. Asked if that meant that more troops from outside Iraq would be brought in before the numbers were reduced, the PMOS said it meant that the issue was being kept under review within the strategic framework. It would be up to the Iraqis to set out their needs to achieve Iraqi-isation. Asked by The Scotsman to explain the term ‘Iraqi-isation’, the PMOS said that we had been talking about this issue for the past month and a half. It was about Iraqi troops, Iraqi police, Iraqi border guards and Iraqi intelligence services taking over responsibility for the security of Iraq. That had been our consistent message since before the UN Resolution was agreed earlier this month. Asked if it was more or less likely that additional British troops would be sent to Iraq, the PMOS said that he had no intention of getting drawn into a speculative discussion about this matter. An assessment of what was needed to achieve Iraqi-isation would be made by the Iraqi Government. Our goal was to see a stable Iraq. That would be done by training the Iraqi forces so that stability would be sustainable. People would just have to exercise a little patience until that was done.

Asked to what extent Iraqi-isation had already been achieved, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had pointed out in his Statement to the House today, we were further down the road in British areas of Iraq. The profile of our troops there had changed because the load was being carried more and more by Iraqi forces. Obviously that scenario varied in different parts of the country. In the past, our emphasis had been on getting the required number of Iraqis needed to fulfil all the necessary functions. Now we were focussing on the quality of Iraqi-isation, which was why we were giving people the training they needed to deal with what was still a difficult security environment.

5 Comments »

"Asked if the Government still intended to send additional British troops to Iraq, the PMOS said that we were expecting US General David Patraeus, who was leading the effort in terms of training Iraqis, to agree a rough medium term plan and timetable for Iraqi-isation of the security services with Prime Minister Alawi and the Multi National Force. This would dictate the strategic needs, as viewed by the Iraqis themselves."

and still the planners are surprised by the hand-over of power – all the US will have is a ROUGH plan

for f**k sake they have had over 12 months to plan this and all they can do is a ROUGH plan

If I don’t stop now I will be accused of a tirade…….
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 1 Jul 2004 on 11:40 am | Link
So I’m sure that when a protesting Iraqi citizen is bleeding to death in the street he will be glad that he has been shot a policeman acting on behalf of a US appointed government rather than a policeman acting on behalf of a self appointed dictator.

There is a difference but I think that ordinary Iraqis could be excused for not grasping the subtlties of the situation.

If the UK is so keen to liberate the people of the world from oppressive regimes why does it keep supporting them – Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and now supporting martial law in Iraq!
Comment by Uncarved Block — 1 Jul 2004 on 12:55 pm | Link
Because the wrong way to change things is to close doors that close the minds of those you wish to change. You achieve compromise through diplomacy and discussion; not by cutting off contact.
Comment by Gregory Lightyear — 1 Jul 2004 on 10:19 pm | Link
I totally agree that to have an influence we must maintain contact but there is a big difference between maintaining contact and supporting.
Comment by Uncarved Block — 2 Jul 2004 on 10:13 am | Link
Check out the new DVD that explains why congress is refusing to protect our borders even 6 years after the devastating impact of 9/11 movie is “Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement” available at netflix
Comment by Jake — 18 Feb 2008 on 1:07 pm | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Iraq

5 Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries