Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister was confident, as the Iraqi Vice President Mr. Hashemi was, that if the armed forces in Iraq were reformed UK forces could be withdrawn in a year’s time, the PMOS said that he had not seen the briefing to which the reporter referred but the Prime Minister was meeting Mr. Hashemi at the moment. In terms of the overall situation it depended on the conditions on the ground. The policy of Iraqisation is one that the UK has been pursuing since Easter 2004. It is a process of making sure that the Iraqi have the capacity and capability to run things themselves. That is our aspiration but it does depend on the conditions on the ground.

The PMOS added that he would not be drawn on committing to a particular time scale. The Secretary of State for the Foreign Office and the Secretary of State for Defence have spoken about the rough time frames in the past but there was nothing to add to that and it did depend on the conditions on the ground, not least the completion of Operation Sinbad. The Prime Minister will assess the situation once the operation has finished. After a period of assessment the Prime Minister will make a statement in the House of Commons.

Asked if the Prime Minister will discuss with Mr. Hashemi the need to disarm the Shi’a militia as they are part of the problem, the PMOS said that Prime Minister Maliki has spoken of the need to end the militia problem, in particular in Baghdad, and we fully agree with that and that is in part why we support the US decision, as announced last week.

The PMOS added that in every conversation the Prime Minister has on Iraq he emphasises the need to deal with the militia problem whether it is Sunni or Shi’a. Asked if the Prime Minister would be voicing concern over the use of the death penalty and the way the executions of Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar had taken place, the PMOS said that he had always made clear our opposition to the death penalty, including after it was imposed on Saddam Hussein. That has remained a consistent part of our message.

Asked if there was any comment on the manner of the recent executions, the PMOS said that we recognise the right of the sovereign government of Iraq to take a contrary view to ours on the death penalty. However we did emphasis that if the executions were to be carried out they should be done so in a dignified way. If, as it appears to be the case, this did not happen then that clearly was wrong, but as the Prime Minister said after the execution of Saddam Hussein the manner of death should neither obscure the crimes these people committed against the Iraqi people nor excuse the manner in which they died if indeed it did go wrong.

Asked if it was the British view that there should be a complete withdrawal of troops at some point as the Iraqi deputy President seems to be suggesting a full withdrawal, not just a withdrawal to barracks, the PMOS said that we had no wish to remain in Iraq any longer than the Iraqi government wishes us to be there or in any numbers, what it depends on is the situation on the ground and the need for support for the Iraqi government. What we hope is that the Iraqi government develops a capability and the capacity to fulfil that role itself.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

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.

» Monday, January 15, 2007

Iraq

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries