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Iraq

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary. The Statement is as follows: ““With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about our operations in Iraq. ““First, let me express my sincere condolences to the families of those UK forces personnel most recently killed in Iraq—on 5 September, Fusilier Donal Anthony Mead and Fusilier Stephen Robert Manning, both from C Company, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers; and on 11 September, Major Matthew Bacon of the Intelligence Corps, who was serving as a staff officer with the Headquarters of the Multi-National Division (South East). ““Let us remind ourselves of our objective in Iraq. It is to work with the rest of the international community and the UN, now under UNSCR 1546, to assist the Iraqi people and their elected representatives: first, to establish their own democratic government and institutions; secondly, to build their own security forces to safeguard that democracy; and thirdly, to develop their economy and civil society. ““We are helping the Iraqis to build all three. The terrorists want to impede and destroy all three. That is the battleground. ““I can put this no better than President Talibani did in the Times this morning:"      ‘The battle of Iraq cannot be won by retreat or compromise, but by the vision and determination for which Britain is renowned’." ““And that means, as Prime Minister Jafaari said when I met him recently,"      ‘the presence of multinational forces in Iraq for us is based on need, security need for these forces to support our forces’." ““The UK is in Iraq for as long as we are needed and as long as we need to be there, and no longer. ““The political process in Iraq continues to be on track. Following the elections in January and the establishment of the Constitutional Commission, the Iraqis have now produced a draft constitution that will be the subject of an historic national referendum later this week. Few people thought that we would get to this point. Preparations are also under way for full, democratic national elections in December. These are enormous strides in any context and have been made in spite of the efforts of terrorists to derail Iraq’s progress towards a peaceful and democratic future. ““Against this political backdrop, the coalition’s top priority is working with the Iraqis to improve the security environment and build the capability of the Iraqi security forces so that they are increasingly able to take responsibility for delivering law and order. In this, we are working not alone but with 27 other nations and under the UNSCR and the UN. ““We are beginning to see real results. More than 190,000 Iraqi security forces have now been trained, and the number of Iraqi units capable of conducting effective counter-insurgency operations is increasing steadily. This means that there are now more Iraqi security forces than there are multinational forces. But, as everyone involved in the process recognises, there are no quick fixes, and building the Iraqi leadership, command and control, logistics and support structures will take more time. ““We have always said that our handover to the Iraqis will be conditional upon their developing their own security capabilities and that we will see the job through until those conditions have been met. ““The conditions that will permit the transfer of security responsibility to the Iraqi security forces have been defined by the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility, which, as the House may recall, was formed by the Iraqi Prime Minister over the summer. The basic principles for transfer of security to the Iraqi authorities are based on four broad categories: an assessment of the insurgents’ threat level; Iraqi security forces’ ability to take on the security task themselves; the capacity of provincial bodies to cope with the changed security environment; and the posture and support available from coalition forces. We expect the committee’s criteria to be confirmed soon. Thereafter, assessments will be made by the Iraqis themselves to determine which areas of Iraq are ready to transfer to Iraqi control. ““We therefore stand by the strategy that we have maintained up to now, which sets out the conditions under which we will hand security to the Iraqis and begin to draw down our own forces. I want to emphasise again that we will stay in Iraq until the job is done and that we will not make significant changes to the UK’s force posture in Iraq until the coalition partners and, in particular, the Iraqis are confident that the conditions are right. That was, is and will remain our position. ““The biggest obstacle to our leaving Iraq is now the actions of the terrorists themselves. Terrorist activity only delays our leaving; it does not hasten our leaving Iraq. ““Turning to the security situation in Multinational Division (South East), honourable Members will have seen the graphic television pictures of events in Basra on 19 September. Two soldiers in MND(SE) were arrested by the Iraqi police service and held at an Iraqi police station in Basra. We agreed with the Governor of Basra and with the Chief of Police to collect the personnel from the police station but, as we prepared to do so, it became clear that the two soldiers had been handed to local militia. ““The decision to mount an operation to enter the police station was then taken. That was a decision I fully supported at the time and still do. ““I am pleased to be able to tell the House that, while only one of the soldiers injured on that day is still receiving medical treatment, the others have returned to their units. They all have my thanks and admiration for a job well done, as I believe they have that of the whole House. ““The fact that we were able to mount an extremely complex operation in defence of our own soldiers which led to the successful rescue of two soldiers held hostage by militiamen, without firing a single shot, is a credit to our forces. I can also confirm to the House that the Iraqis have themselves withdrawn the warrants that they issued later that week for the arrest of the two British soldiers concerned. ““I would not wish to downplay the challenges which remain. The arrest of 12 suspects last week, for instance, demonstrates our determination to deal robustly with those implicated in improvised explosive device attacks—bomb attacks, to the layman—against UK forces. I can confirm that weapons, and other equipment, were found in these raids. ““Nevertheless, serious as they were, we need to keep these events in perspective: the rest of Multinational Division (South East) was unaffected. Basra has remained largely calm since the incident, and we have been working hard to restore relations with Basra council so that we can again work together for the good of the people in Basra. ““Turning to troop roulement in Iraq, I very much regret the speculative and often wildly misleading reports about troop increments which have appeared in the press since we last met here. Let me therefore turn to the details of the next routine troop rotation of UK Forces in Multinational Division (South East), which begins this month. The lead UK formation in Iraq, currently 12 Mechanised Brigade, will be replaced by 7th Armoured Brigade, which will take over command of UK forces in early November. ““In addition to 7th Armoured Brigade’s Headquarters and Signals squadron, the following major units will be deployed to replace those currently in Iraq: 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, 1st Battalion The Highlanders, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 9th and 12th Royal Lancers, 1st Battalion The Kings Own Royal Border Regiment, the Scots Dragoon Guards, 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, the 32nd Engineer Regiment and the 2nd Logistics Support Regiment. The Territorial Army units involved in this roulement are a single company from the 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, and a composite company from the West Midlands Regiment and the Royal Welch Regiment. ““During what will be a very busy period of troop deployments, I have also decided to deploy one company from the Cyprus-based theatre reserve force to relieve the rotating troops of some routine security tasks—static security or guard duty. A company of 1st Battalion The Royal Highland Fusiliers will deploy for a few weeks while the rotation lasts. ““The total number of troops in Iraq following the deployment of 7th Armoured Brigade will be around 8,000. This is about 500 fewer than at present, reflecting the closure of two small bases in Basra, the transfer of some training tasks to the Iraqi security forces and structural differences between the two brigades. These are relatively minor adjustments, however, and will not affect activities being carried out by UK forces. ““We will continue to build Iraqi security capability, and will continue to keep the security situation under review during the referendum and through the elections later this year. The Iraqi security forces themselves will lead on security for the referendum, with our support. In MND (South East) we have been assisting the Iraqi Army’s 10th Division to ensure they are prepared for this task. Earlier this year, I visited 10th Division itself. ““This summer has seen much positive progress in Iraq, despite the worst intentions of the terrorists. The production of an Iraqi constitution written by democratically elected Iraqi politicians on behalf of their own people is a huge step forward. We have no intention of undermining this historic achievement by abandoning Iraq before it is ready to stand on its own two feet, or before its democratically elected politicians tell us this is the case. Of course we are sure to encounter more obstacles, particularly in the run-up to the elections in December, when a minority of terrorists, and some from outside Iraq, will almost certainly seek to disrupt Iraq’s progress towards security and democracy. ““The recent discovery and recovery of more than 160 bodies from a mass grave in the Al Muthanna province in MND (South East) is a sober reminder of the horrors that the Iraqi people have had to face in the past, and the reasons why we must continue our efforts to support them in building a better future, embracing democracy and free from tyranny. And so, while we do not want to be in Iraq any longer than absolutely necessary, we will not be deflected from our task. We have made a commitment to the Iraqi people, and it is important that we honour that commitment and see our task through. That is what we will do””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.