Prime Minister's question asked in the House of Commons, by Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (Liberal Democrat). It was answered on Wednesday, 10 January 2007 on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Engagements

Question: I join the Prime Minister in his expressions of sympathy and condolence. Given that the Prime Minister and President Bush are in agreement about strategy in Iraq, and that later today President Bush will announce the deployment of 22,000 additional American troops to Iraq, how many British troops is the Prime Minister considering sending?

Answer: President Bush, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman just indicated, will set out the policy for the United States forces, in particular in respect of Baghdad, later today. Let me just make one thing very clear, however: in relation to Basra, the situation is different in some very critical respects. First of all, in respect of Basra, we do not have the same Sunni-Shi’a sectarian violence, we do not have al-Qaeda operating in the same way, and we do not have the Sunni insurgency operating in the same way. As he knows, there has been an operation that the British have been conducting in Basra over the past few months, which will be completed in the next few weeks. That operation, I am pleased to say, has been successful up to now. That will allow the Iraqis to take over more and more control of their own policing and security in Basra. The purpose of the American plan—and it is for President Bush to announce it—will be precisely the same: it is in order to allow the Iraqi capability to take over security progressively, over time. The situation in Baghdad is different from the situation in Basra.

Secondary information