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Iraq (Basra Incident)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome, and for his overt and often-expressed support for our troops. I had not sought to raise the issue of cynicism in my remarks about the media coverage. The point that I wished to make was probably better expressed by General Cooper in his interviews on Saturday evening and late at night. He said to the BBC reporter interviewing him that the film being repeated in relation to the story was now some hours old. Basra city had been calm for some time, and as it turned out, it was calm overnight, calm yesterday and calm overnight again. My point was that those who are interested in these matters and who will pay attention to what I say at the Dispatch Box ought to know—this is no criticism of the media authorities—that the repetition of historical footage, even if only hours old, can give an impression of repeated and continuing disorder on the streets, when the fact is, as I understand it from our people on the ground, that everything was brought under control within about four hours. The right hon. Gentleman asked me to confirm what he already knows. As I understand it, helicopters have been brought down in Iraq, although not in our area of operation, in the way that he describes. It would be inappropriate and unhelpful to speculate at this stage of the inquiry into the incident as to how this particular helicopter came to crash.