Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Campbell of Alloway (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 20 November 2006.

Iraq: Withdrawal

Question: My Lords, is it not better to leave undiscussed arrangements for the retreat of our Armed Forces?

Answer: My Lords, no one is talking about retreat—absolutely not. We have to recognise that the job that our Armed Forces are doing is not traditional in the sense of taking over territory; it is about supporting the development of the Iraq’s own security forces. It is about handing over to those security forces when the conditions on the ground exist to enable it to be done, without creating an increase in sectarian violence. That is our objective. We have a clear strategy to achieve it, and in certain areas we are seeing its implementation work well. We need to be realistic where it is not working well.

Secondary information