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Defence Policy

As I said earlier, I believe that we are approaching the end of the work that we took on in Iraq. Three of the four provinces for which we had responsibility have been handed over to Iraqi authorities, and we are told that we will do the same with the fourth in the foreseeable future. After that happens, we should start to make preparations to leave Iraq. We should not scuttle out the minute the fourth province has been handed over but, as we have said in the past, we should initiate a timed and phased withdrawal. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have said, regularly, that a timetable for withdrawal is quite impossible, but I believe that what the Prime Minister has announced—and what the Government have begun to implement—amounts to an embryonic timetable for withdrawal. The Government are determined to do nothing at a political level ahead of the American elections next autumn that could be seen as a final exit from Iraq, but we will watch with interest to see how far they will continue the process beyond the reduction of 2,500 troops that they have announced already.