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Iraq and the Middle East

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have been in close discussion with Secretary of State Condi Rice—and, indeed, with the President—on this matter over the past few weeks. There are possibilities of progress and I hope that in the coming weeks a framework for taking this forward will become a little clearer. Perhaps it would not be sensible to say any more about that at this stage, but obviously I look forward to my discussions with President Abbas later today. In respect of the strategy being pursued by American forces in Baghdad, the most important thing is that it is strongly supported by Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi Government. They recognise that the situation in Baghdad is different from that in Basra. In Baghdad, they want this security plan to be carried out and to move through the city and really take on the extremists. In Basra, the 10th Division of the Iraqi armed forces consists of about 5,000 troops and the truth of the matter is that it is capable of doing the job. A lot of the fire is directed at the multinational force, rather than involving sectarian violence, so it is a different situation there. I do not have much to add to what I said to the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) earlier about the Iraq survey group. The Baker-Hamilton report made it clear that it wants to see a draw-down of American troops when the conditions are right, and that is also the strategy of the Bush Administration. It has never been our strategy to hold the troops there in perpetuity. On the contrary, as the Iraqi capability builds up, the need for our capability reduces. Of course, that will depend on the circumstances and on the time. In Baghdad, the extremists have redoubled their efforts, so we have had to redouble ours. I have never agreed with those who say that the situation in the middle east was stable under Saddam, but there we are. That is a disagreement and there is no point in going back over it—