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Darfur Crisis

The hon. Gentleman raises another important point. That is why the UK has for quite some time been considering the capacity of the AU mission, while recognising the difficulty of the situation in which it found itself. It is important that as we have this discussion we do not appear to criticise the AU mission, because without it we would have been in a much worse position. However, we acknowledge the complexity of the task. This is the first big operation that the AU has done, apart from deploying the small number of troops that it put into Burundi, which was successful, and that is why we have given a lot of practical support. I was about to discuss that. It is for the UN planning mission to ask precisely the question that the hon. Gentleman put in order to get an answer as quickly as possible. Depending on how fast troop-contributing countries can be found, the UN mission can then get in. One or two things have happened, not least the meeting of the peace and security council of the AU, that helped to move things on.