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Defence in the World

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. On the first part, I do not know of anybody who has said that the American forces would be there for 10 or 15 years, certainly not in their present configuration. I do know that my opposite number, the Secretary of State for Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has said that he envisages—in contradistinction to some other comments that have been made—that it will not be an easy or a short insurgency to defeat, and that the insurgency could last for 5, 10, 12 or more years. That is not to say that the counter-insurgency will inevitably be led by forces other than Iraqis for that time period. The purpose of what we are trying to do now is genuinely to place the future democratic control of Iraq, with all its difficulties, with all its religious and ethnic groups—Sunni, Shi’a, Kurd—and to accompany that by a democratically controlled security force capable of defending that democracy and taking on the insurgency. While it is possible to envisage a prolonged insurgency, through imported terrorism or through disaffected elements of the former regime—or through alienated members of the Sunni population—it is also possible, as the political element and the security of Iraq increase, to envisage that element taking a lead. That means that there is no definite time scale, but rather the prospect of a conditional withdrawal. I assure the hon. Gentleman that at the point at which the democratically elected Iraqi Government say ““We would like you to go””, we will go. I hope that that answers his question.