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Iraq

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about our operations in Iraq. On returning to the House, may I first express my sincere condolences—and, I am sure, those of the whole House—to the families of those UK forces personnel who were 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). We express our gratitude to those who gave their lives in the service of their country, and we express our condolences to their families and to their loved ones. Let us remind ourselves of our objective in Iraq. It is to work, along with the rest of the international community, and now the United Nations under United Nations Security Council resolution 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 of them; the terrorists want to impede and destroy all three of them. That is the battleground. I can put it 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 those forces to support our forces.””" The United Kingdom is in Iraq for as long as we are needed, and as long as we need to be there, and no longer than either. The political process, despite the worst intentions of the terrorists, continues to be on track. Following the elections in January of this year 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, in any context, enormous strides forward, and, in the context of the continual terrorist activity, hugely significant strides forward which have been made in spite of the terrorist attempts 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 to build the capability of the Iraqi security forces so that they themselves are increasingly able to take responsibility for delivering law and order. In this we are working not alone, but with 27 other nations under the United Nations Security Council resolution. Despite, again, all the efforts of the terrorists, I can report to the House that we are beginning to see real progress in building up the Iraqi security forces. There are now more than 190,000 Iraqi security force personnel who have been trained and are capable thus far, and the number of Iraqi units capable of conducting effective counter-insurgency operations is increasing steadily. That means that there are now, for the first time, more trained and capable Iraqi security forces than there are multinational forces in Iraq. But as everyone involved in this 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 themselves 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 House may wish to be reminded of the criteria and the terms on which those conditions might be fulfilled, since there has been some demand outside this House for clarification on what is sometimes called the exit strategy. 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. Those are the criteria; we expect the Committee’s criteria to be confirmed soon. Thereafter, assessments will be made by the Iraqis to determine which areas of Iraq are ready to transfer to Iraqi control. I emphasise that 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 themselves and begin to draw down our 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 United Kingdom’s force posture in Iraq until we, the coalition partners and, in particular, the Iraqis themselves, are confident that the conditions are right. That was, is and remains our position and any speculation to the contrary is simply wrong. Indeed, I would go further and say that the biggest obstacle now to our leaving Iraq in view of the build-up of the Iraqi forces’ capability is the actions of the terrorists themselves. Terrorist activity only delays our leaving Iraq; it does not hasten it. Turning specifically to the security situation in Multinational Division (South East), hon. 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 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—a decision that I fully supported at the time and still fully support. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that, while 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, and I believe that they have the thanks 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 that the Iraqis have now 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 that remain before us. For instance, the arrest of 12 suspects last week on Friday demonstrates our determination to deal robustly with those implicated in improvised explosive device attacks—bomb attacks to the layman—against our UK forces. I can confirm that weapons and other equipment were found in those raids. Nevertheless, serious as they were, we need to keep those events in perspective. The rest of MND(SE) 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 work together for the good of the people in Basra. On troop roulement and troop presence in Iraq, I very much regret the speculative and often wildly misleading press reports that have appeared since we last met here. I have not discussed any troop roulements in detail until the House returned because I believe that the House should be the first to know our intentions. Unfortunately, holding for that length of time sometimes prompts wild speculation outside. Let me therefore turn to the details of the next routine troop rotation of UK forces in MND(SE), which begins this month. The lead UK formation in Iraq, currently 12 Mechanised Brigade, will be replaced by 7 Armoured Brigade, which will take over command of UK forces in early November. In addition to 7 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/12th Royal Lancers; 1st Battalion the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment; the Scots Dragoon Guards; 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery; 32nd Engineer Regiment; and 2 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 Welsh Regiment. During what will be a very busy period of troop movements, 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, such as static security or guard duty. A company of 1st Battalion the Royal Highland Fusiliers will deploy for a few weeks while that rotation lasts. The total numbers of troops in Iraq following the deployment of 7 Armoured Brigade will be around 8,000. That 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 the activities being carried out by United Kingdom forces. We will continue to build Iraqi security capability and 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 in the referendum, with our support. In MND(SE), we have been assisting the Iraqi army’s 10th Division to ensure that it is prepared for this task. Earlier this year, I visited the 10th Division in Iraq. 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 feel that to be the case. Of course, we will encounter more obstacles. There will be more major hurdles to overcome, particularly in the run-up to the elections in December, when a minority of the Iraqis and some from outside—the terrorists—will almost certainly seek to disrupt Iraq’s progress towards security, democracy and self-determination. The recent discovery and recovery of more than 160 more bodies from a mass grave in the al-Muthanna province in MND(SE), is a sober reminder of the horrors that the Iraqi people have had to face in the past, and of the reasons why we must continue our efforts to support them in building a better future, embracing democracy and free from tyranny. So, while we do not want to be in Iraq any longer than is absolutely necessary, we will not be deflected from our task. We have made a commitment to the Iraqi people; it is important that we honour that commitment and see our task through, and that is what we will do.