Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister believed in hearts and minds with regards to Iraq, the PMOS said if you actually look at what the Prime Minister has said in the Los Angeles speech, if you look at what the Prime Minister had said in terms of winning the battle of ideas, if you look at what the Prime Minister has said in terms of willing the political battle, in view of what the Prime Minister has said in terms of the need to push the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) through then you cannot say that the Prime Minister has not recognised the need to win hearts and minds. It is not something that you do overnight. It is something that you need to work on and if you go back to the Los Angeles speech the Prime Minister identified there the need to push forward on a consistent basis to win hearts and minds. Put to the PMOS that anyone who has said that the Prime Minister had not done enough to win hearts and minds would be wrong, the PMOS said that he did not know to whom the journalists was referring so he would not comment. However what the Prime Minister has always emphasised was that you must put equal weight on winning hearts and minds but also the proper security response where that is necessary.

Asked about the plans to draw Iran into talks about the future of Iraq, the PMOS said that the Government has diplomatic relations with Tehran and at the neighbourhood conferences Iran has been able to attend those. As mentioned this morning we also believe that at the same time as underlining that Iran has behaviour over the 15 sea personnel was unacceptable, we did open contacts there, which we would continue to maintain.

1 Comment »

The PMOS is full of it as usual.The attached is grim but necessary reading. It further gives the lie to Iraq Body Count and other agencies who are, willingly or not, underestimating the carnage in Iraq. These figures are just those which have come to the attention of the Karbala authorities.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20070515125826979C680577
Comment by tony — 15 May 2007 on 9:34 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.

» Monday, May 14, 2007

Iraq

1 Comment »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries