UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 727-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

DEFENCE COMMITTEE

 

 

UK OPERATIONS IN IRAQ

 

 

Tuesday 24 July 2007

RT HON BOB AINSWORTH MP, MR DESMOND BOWEN CMG

and BRIGADIER CHRIS HUGHES CBE

Evidence heard in Public Questions 80 - 184

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee

on Tuesday 24 July 2007

Members present

Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair

Mr David S Borrow

Mr David Crausby

Linda Gilroy

Mr Dai Havard

Mr Adam Holloway

Mr Bernard Jenkin

Mr Brian Jenkins

Mr Kevan Jones

Robert Key

Willie Rennie

________________

 

Witnesses: Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Mr Desmond Bowen CMG, Policy Director, and Brigadier Chris Hughes CBE, Director of Joint Commitments (Military), Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.

Q80 Chairman: Welcome to this evidence session on Iraq and, Minister, without meaning to say anything about your team, may I say you are particularly welcome at your first session before this Committee. We are conscious that you are newly in post, but we are also conscious of the fact that you have just returned from Iraq. We were in Iraq a couple of weeks ago, as you know, and some of the people we met were in the RAF Regiment which has just suffered those casualties in Basra and, I must say, we were deeply impressed with the courage of what the RAF Regiment were doing and of the sorts of trials that they are all going through in Basra at the moment. The casualties have risen and you will have been there last week, although I do not know whether you were there when they were actually killed, but thank you very much indeed for coming in front of our Committee. May I ask you to begin by introducing your team, please.

Mr Ainsworth: Chairman, thank you for your welcome. As you say, I have been in post for less than a month, but I have managed to get out to both Afghanistan and Iraq in the last week. With me, I have Desmond Bowen, who is our Policy Director, and Brigadier Chris Hughes, who is the Military Director of Joint Commitments. Chris not only holds that position, but, prior to that, in 2005 he was Operation Commander out in Basra, so he brings a knowledge probably far deeper than yours or mine. Recognising the fact that I am pretty new into the job, we will try to act as a team in order to try to give you the maximum amount of information that we can. In coming up to speed, I am trying as fast as I can, but I do not want my coming up to speed to hinder your ability to get the information that you need to get out of the Department in order to conduct the inquiry. Your comments about the people out there, I was on my way into the COB at the time that the attack took place, so my arrival was actually delayed by what happened and, as I say, I was just enormously impressed not only with the bravery of the troops there, but the competence, the skill and the ability that is required at every level of the operation by our forces out in Iraq is tremendously impressive.

Q81 Chairman: Can I begin this evidence session by asking what your general assessment is of the security and political situation in Iraq as a whole. Do you think things have got better or worse and what do you think the prospects are overall for Iraq as a whole? We will come down to the southern part later.

Mr Ainsworth: I did not manage to get up to Baghdad. We laid the trip on at fairly short notice, so that was not possible as people's diary commitments had taken them off, so I would not try to pretend to the Committee that my knowledge and assessment of the overall situation would be as good as it is about the circumstances in the south-east area where we have direct responsibility. We are in the middle of the American operation, the Surge, and that has had success in some areas, but it is far too early to say the degree to which that has been successful and obviously there is the big report coming up in September.

Q82 Chairman: We will come back to the Surge itself in due course and we will ask some more detailed questions.

Mr Ainsworth: I would say that the nature of the problem in different parts of the country is very different, as the Committee will know better than I. We have got the sectarian problems in the Baghdad area in the centre of the country dominating the situation and the need for the Iraqi Government to reach out to the Sunni community is overwhelming in terms of the necessity in that area. In our area of responsibility, the nature of the problem is completely different where religion is not part of the problem, potentially it is a force for unity in our own area, but we are dealing with a different set of problems and a different set of priorities in the south-east.

Q83 Chairman: If we can move on to the south-eastern area, how would you assess the security and political situation in the south-eastern area, particularly in the Basra province?

Mr Ainsworth: I think the recent appointment of General Mohan to command the Armed Forces in the south-east and General Jalil to command the police forces in the area is very important and a good sign of potential. Those people, having been appointed, now need to be backed up. Progress with regards to army capability and army capacity is a lot more reassuring than it is in the area of the police. The police have got a lot more work to do as the problems are far deeper and more difficult to deal with, but Mohan has made a very good start, as has General Jalil. The capacity of the Iraqi 10th Division is coming along, it is being built all the time, and it will be absolutely vital that that continues if we are going to be able to achieve provincial Iraqi control in Basra, as we have in the other three areas. Meanwhile, the position that we find ourselves in is difficult, as the Committee knows. We are the people who are effectively providing the backbone of stability and, therefore, those people in the area, no matter what their motivations are, and there are so many different motivations of different people in the Basra region through to people who have very close associations with forces outside the country, there are the patriotic kind of youth who are targeting our forces, but there is also a huge, criminal element who are effectively intent on pillaging their own country, people should not underestimate the degree to which that motivates some of the forces in the south-east area. Those people know that we are the ultimate guarantor of any chance of progress and, therefore, it is not surprising, although it is enormously difficult, that we are the people who are being targeted overwhelmingly by those individuals concerned. That puts us in some difficulty. Convoys into the Basra Palace are very difficult to secure and the attacks on Basra Palace are regular, as are attacks out on to the COB itself. Our presence there though not only is a necessity in terms of the capacity-building, the training that is going on in the area, but it also is our ability to project force into the wider province which, until the assessment is done that the Iraqi security services are able to take over, is a necessity which will remain.

Q84 Chairman: You used one phrase which I wonder if you could explain, please. You said "patriotic youth". Are there Iraqi patriots there attacking our forces, were you suggesting?

Mr Ainsworth: I think that there are young people in the Basra area who are being used. Their motivation is not necessarily the motivation of those people who are putting them on the streets and who are using them in order to attack. There are serious organised militias who have, as I have said, different motivations and some of them are closely aligned with forces in Iran and some of them have a clear, nationalist commitment to Iraq itself, but nonetheless, want to attack us and some of them are looking after their corrupt individual self-interest, and I do not think we should downplay that, but not everybody is of that mind. There are lots of innocent people who are being used by those organisations who have not necessarily got that motivation at all.

Q85 Mr Jones: Can I just pick up a couple of points you have made. You used the words "ultimate guarantor", "projector of force" and "we are the backbone of stability". When we visited a few weeks ago, it was my fifth visit to Iraq and my fifth visit to Basra and my first visit was in July 2003 when we quite clearly had a footprint in the city of Basra where we had people on the ground, you could walk around, you had civic teams doing reconstruction and things like that. Is it not the case that what we have now basically is a force surrounded, I think, a little bit like cowboys and Indians, at Basra Palace with the reinforcements, you could say, at the COB at the airport? The idea that we are projecting force or stability is just not the case. We are going in on basically nightly suicide missions on occasions to go in to relieve the palace and, once we withdraw from the palace, the city itself, there will be very little need for us to go in and, if we did, it would be extremely dangerous, so are we actually a stability force or a projector of power anymore or are we actually just really leading Basra itself to what it is, controlled by various factions, as you have described?

Mr Ainsworth: As we get nearer the point where people begin to appreciate that there is the prospect of the Government of Iraq having the ability to control the situation itself, then those people who do not want that to happen ----

Q86 Mr Jones: No, but we are not doing it like that.

Mr Ainsworth: Those people who have a vested interest in ensuring that it cannot happen obviously become pretty focused on what they have to do in order to try to prevent that from coming about.

Mr Jones: But we are not doing that. What we are doing basically, there are two or three lines or routes into Basra Palace and we were told quite clearly by the people who were going in that night when we were there a few weeks ago ----

Mr Jenkin: That is confidential.

Q87 Mr Jones: Shut up, Bernard, stop being prissy! Those lines or routes into the town were being attacked not occasionally, but on a nightly basis going in.

Mr Ainsworth: We have to check convoys into the palace and there are not that many routes by which those convoys, and they are supply convoys, as you know, because you have been out there more often than I have, so you have probably got a far better understanding of this than me, but those convoys are substantial and there are only a very few routes that can be taken in there, so that is a massive operation to try to provide force protection and to keep people alive while we manage to reinforce the palace. Now, I am not trying to say that that is not a difficult issue, but it is not true to say that our presence either in the palace or in the COB does not provide the last guarantee of power in the region and the 10th Division is not ready, although it may be approaching that point, to assume those responsibilities itself. Now, we are getting there and the capacity of the 10th Division is coming up all the time, they are training 5th Brigade now, they are beginning to be brought up to strength now, but, for the time being, the ultimate guarantor or the biggest boys on the block effectively are us and our presence there is felt and it is felt where we need it to be felt. We are able, although it is very difficult, to take forces into the city itself and that happens on a regular basis, and we are able to deploy out into the areas around the city, so it is not true to say that our presence there is not a projective force in the area to a considerable degree.

Mr Jones: Well, I would disagree with you on that.

Chairman: I will come back to these issues because they are very important.

Q88 Robert Key: Minister, I would like to take a step back and look at the politics of this because a lot of people in this country are now asking, "Why are we still there and what are we trying to achieve?" The Iraq Commission, in their recent report, concluded, "The initial, over-ambitious vision of the Coalition can no longer be achieved in Iraq", and, "The UK Government needs...to redefine its objectives". How do you respond to that?

Mr Ainsworth: Well, for some long time now we have concentrated on the need for security and stability and those have been a large part of our objectives. When you say, "Why are we still there?", we are there in lower numbers than we were some short while ago and we have managed to hand over control of three of the four provinces that we originally had direct responsibility for to the Iraqi forces themselves. Basra is more difficult and it is more difficult than those three provinces; there is no doubt about that. We are there in order to achieve the conditions where they are able to take over the job that we are currently doing. Now, there is hope among our people out there at every level that we are approaching the situation where that can be done, but we have got to look at the conditions that apply on the ground, their capacity, and we have got to talk to our allies and to the Iraqi Government about that. That cannot be a unilateral decision on our part; it has got to be a proper assessment of the conditions and the capability of the people we are handing over to as well.

Q89 Robert Key: How do we make that assessment then? How do we measure our success?

Mr Ainsworth: It has to be to a degree subjective, but it has to be done in consultation with Iraqi commanders and there is growing confidence on their part. I even met General Habib who appears to be a fairly competent commander of 10th Division and he is getting to the point where certainly he thinks that his forces are able to take over in Basra city in the near future, and that is where he is, so that conversation is ongoing. Are we able to hand over in the city, are they up to taking over not only the facilities that we have got, but doing the job that we are doing as well and then are they able to take over in the wider Basra province? That conversation is taking place.

Q90 Robert Key: The Iraq Commission said that the "handover should not be dependent on the prevailing security situation". Do you agree with that?

Mr Ainsworth: No, I do not think I do agree with that. I think that the security position cannot be the whole picture, but it is a vital part of the assessment of whether or not we are able to hand over. We cannot hand over to a vacuum or to the forces that are going to destroy Iraqi Government control and want to destroy Iraqi Government control in the south-east of the country and, if we do not want to do that, then security is absolutely key and the capacity of the people we are handing over to is absolutely key to the timetable for handing over control of the province.

Q91 Robert Key: So we will not be driven out by a difficult security situation, but our objective will be to leave in an orderly manner when the Iraqi forces can look after themselves and their Government and people? Is that a fair assessment?

Mr Ainsworth: Build the capacity, assess the situation and check the confidence of the people we are handing over to, and that is not to say that there are not going to be problems the other side of the handover; there are problems now. Iraq is not a benign environment, and those provinces that we have handed over have not been trouble-free and there have been problems in those provinces, but the important point is that, when those problems occurred, the Iraqis dealt with it themselves. They dealt with it themselves, they controlled the situation and they coped with the problems. Now, that has got to be what we have got to try and achieve in Basra.

Q92 Mr Jones: Can I return to the military and ask quite a simple question to start off with and a few follow-ups. What is the current military role for UK Forces in Basra?

Mr Ainsworth: I think we have talked about it already, although you disagree with me about what the effect of that is. The role is to liaise, to train and to build capacity in the Iraqi Forces themselves and to exercise some projection of force out into the wider area in order to allow that capacity to develop. I do believe that, if we hand over prematurely, then that will be a major problem. Now, that is not to say that we might not be approaching the point when we are able to do that, and there are lots of people out there who hope we are getting close to the point where the Iraqis would be able to take responsibility for the province and, as I say, those conversations, those discussions are taking place.

Q93 Mr Jones: One of the things that we were told by numerous people in the military while we were there is that 90 per cent of the actual violence and attacks are actually against Coalition Forces. Now, it chimes obviously with General Dannatt's position, and I will come on to him in a minute, but this is a quote from The Daily Telegraph which seems to be the way that he now influences public policy by leaking things to The Daily Telegraph rather than talking to ministers or this Committee and it says, "The plain-speaking officer...suggested that the British presence in Iraq was 'exacerbating the security problems' and warned that the Army would 'break' if it was kept there too long". What is your reaction to that?

Mr Ainsworth: If you are intent on mayhem and chaos, no matter what your motives are, whether they are political or whether they are corrupt self-interest ----

Q94 Mr Jones: We are talking about General Dannatt now, are we!

Mr Ainsworth: I am talking about those individuals who are attacking our forces all the time. Then yes, it is right to a degree, and nobody denies this, that it is a useful tool to be able to focus on the fact that there are foreign forces in the area in order to be able to mobilise people who would not necessarily share your aims and objectives, so it is not surprising that people can be motivated to attack us, but those are the motivations.

Mr Jones: But the concern which I have and I think some others on this Committee have is that when you have a senior general, like General Dannatt, making statements like that, and it annoys me intensely because, whenever we have any senior military general before this Committee and we ask about overstretch, we are told that everything is all right and it is no problem, but it does concern me as to who is actually in control now. If we have a general who is leaking stuff to the newspapers left, right and centre, trying clearly to influence whatever agenda it is, is there a big fissure opening up between the politicians and the MoD and General Dannatt because, if that is the case, then I think that is very serious?

Chairman: It is not established that it is General Dannatt who leaked it and you may wish to comment on that as well.

Q95 Mr Jones: It is very strange mail they seem to get regularly at The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Ainsworth: I do not think it is any secret, with the amount of people that we have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there are not huge reserves around for contingencies and other things that might apply, and that is basically the information that was put into the public domain. There is not anything new in it. Now, we cannot control how the media choose to report on something that has been known for some long time. We have got two battle groups that are deployable effectively in unforeseen circumstances at the moment and no more than that because of the amount of commitment that we have got in these two ongoing, as termed within the Department, "medium-sized commitments", and that is a very large commitment. Now, the reporting of defence matters often gets tweaked and gets taken in all kinds of different directions. There were internal documents that basically said what everybody has known for some time that were, it seems, leaked to a newspaper and they chose to put it on the front page, but when I read it, I was wondering where the news was, where the actual news was in the story.

Q96 Mr Jones: Actually, I have to say, I sympathise with General Dannatt's position, although I disagree possibly with his methods of actually trying to change the policy direction, but it was put to us in Iraq and, I have to say, it is something I am actually now coming to myself, that the real military objectives for us in Basra have actually finished and that actually the process which is going to ultimately bring security there is going to be a political one and the fact that the only reason why we are actually not withdrawing more quickly is because relations with the United States are actually influencing that. Now, that, I think, is going to create problems not just politically, but I think also militarily because quite clearly, talking to people on the ground and the dedication which the Chairman and you have already alluded to, if the military reason for them being there is no longer there, you can understand them getting pretty cheesed off pretty quickly. The concern I have is that, if we are going to just pull back to the COB and sit there, we are going to get unfortunately more tragedies like we had last weekend. Now, is that a price worth paying for keeping US-UK relations on some type of civilised basis or for saving face?

Mr Ainsworth: We are part of a coalition in Iraq and we were voluntarily part of the Coalition in Iraq and consultting with our allies about what we do, when we do it and how we do it is an important part of being part of the Coalition, indeed it is absolutely essential to being part of the Coalition and, if there are people who are suggesting that we ought not to do that, then the ramifications of that are pretty profound, but what you are saying about Basra is true. It is the politics and the economics that are important, but our presence there has until now been needed in order to make those things happen. Now, the very fact that we have been able to point up to the Iraqis that we are serious about handing over to them and the fact that we have handed over to them in three of those four provinces has concentrated the mind. The appointment of General Mohan and the appointment of General Jalil is a response from the Iraqis, I think, to the recognition that their getting a grip of their security arrangements in Basra is increasingly important and that we are not prepared to hold on for ever while they get to a position some time whenever, so there is a concentration of the mind, yes, but the advance that needs to be made is in the political and the economic area.

Q97 Mr Jones: But the fact that Mohan is not actually getting control of the security situation and is actually doing deals with the actual militia in the city, and I am not criticising him for that, that is a political thing rather than a security or military solution to it?

Mr Ainsworth: Well, in any insurgency situation, you try to do an assessment of who the enemy is, what their motivation is, who is winnable and who is irreconcilable and, if you have any sense, you try to split them up and you do not leave them as a consolidated front against you. If General Mohan is doing that, then all strength to his elbow; that is the job that we want him to do.

Q98 Willie Rennie: I have a slightly different view from yourself of when we visited Iraq. I came away with the firm belief that, with 90 per cent of the attacks on our forces and, if we withdrew, then the violence which would result would be self-limiting over a relatively short period, we are now part of the problem and not part of the solution. Now, whichever way you look at it, whether you believe that our effort in the south has been a success or whether you think it has been a failure, I think you would come to the same conclusion that our broader withdrawal is something that is quite urgent and would actually resolve for the longer term some of the problems in the south because, as you have recognised, the south is quite different from other parts of the country. Finally, when we met the Prime Minister, we asked him the question, "What would be the effect of our withdrawal from the south?", and I am summarising here, but he said that they could cope with the withdrawal.

Mr Ainsworth: I agree with what you are saying, that the violence in the south appears to be self-limiting. We do not see the suicide bombers and we do not see the degree of irreconcilability to the institutions themselves of the Iraqi State that we do in some other parts of the country. There are other influences in Basra that are not conducive to nation-building, but a lot of the people, and some of them are attacking us, their fundamental aim is to make Iraq a successful country and, therefore, there is potential there that is not in other parts of the area. As to how quickly we can get out, I can only say what I have already said and that is that it has got to be based on the conditions and it has got to be based on the capability of the people we are taking over from, but that debate is taking place now.

Q99 Mr Havard: This question about the self-limiting violence should we withdraw and so on, it is more nationalistic in the south and it is nihilistic in the middle, as one way of describing it, around Baghdad and, therefore, these political possibilities are there, but the question I want to go back to is about this statement attributed to General Dannatt, and I do not know whether he has leaked anything to anybody, but it is in the paper and I want to know what the effects are because, it seems to me, there is a series of phases. As you rightly say, if we withdraw from the town, we are back in the base, but that is not the end of the story and there are a number of other phases that have to go in the story and the same with the US, but let us be clear. The quote that was given before, he is said to have said that our presence in Iraq "was exacerbating the security problems" and he warned that the Army would "break" if we were there too long. Now, that is not the Iraqi Army, that is the British Army which would break if we were there too long, so the question of timing of all of these developments is crucial. Now, he is also reported as saying that he wants extra infantry units. Now, if Iraq is, and it rightly is, stimulating a whole discussion about our formation of forces and how many commitments we can take on, et cetera, et cetera, can we actually have a proper, structured discussion about that rather than it coming out in the newspaper on the basis that it is currently doing because I think, from talking to the personnel on the ground there, that they know that? They know that their military utility is running out and they say, "We are the wrong tool for the job. We do not contest that the job needs to be done, but we are not the best people to do it", so, if it is not them, who is it and how do we have that debate?

Mr Ainsworth: The 'who is it' is the Iraqis themselves. Everybody recognises that.

Q100 Mr Havard: But we are talking about the British Army "breaking" if we do not do something here. That is what the general said and that is what I want to contest. I think some of this is hyperbole in all of this, but nevertheless, we need to have a proper assessment. That is what being said by the top military commander, that our Army is about to "break", and that has elevated this discussion to a slightly different level.

Mr Ainsworth: There are a number of things that you have said. The 'who is it' is the Iraqis, as we have all acknowledged and I not think we disagree with. If we get out of Basra Palace and get back to the COB, then the nature of the problem that we will face will change. Now, whether or not it will get worse is a matter of opinion. There are things, and I will ask the Brigadier to come in in a minute and fill out what his views are on that, but some of the things we currently have to do we will no longer have to do, like the convoys into the palace, so there will be less of a job and less danger in that regard. Some of the weaponry that is being used against the palace is not usable against the COB because of sheer distances and you cannot lob short-term mortars into the COB without coming out in a built-up area and these people use their own people as shelters, so they do their dirty business from among the populated areas, but there is no doubt that some of the capacity that is currently being used against the palace will potentially be usable against the COB.

Q101 Mr Havard: But then we have got 5,000 personnel in the COB, stuck there, doing what for how long?

Mr Ainsworth: On this issue that you raise about whether or not the Army will "break", and you have been out to Iraq recently yourself, I was out last week and nobody in theatre said that to me.

Q102 Mr Havard: No, exactly ----

Mr Ainsworth: They are enormously ----

Q103 Mr Havard: ---- but they did to The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Ainsworth: They are enormously taxed about the way ahead, they are enormously taxed about improving force protection, but nobody has used those kinds of words to me and I do not believe they used them to you either. I do not know whether the Brigadier wants to say anything in terms of these issues of how we protect ourselves in the COB, if we get out of Basra Palace.

Brigadier Hughes: If I may pick up on a couple of points, I think the discussion well illustrates that we are at the most difficult time, that any military transition, as transition is in other wars, is hugely complex and it has been getting more difficult as we get closer to transition. Does that mean we are part of the problem and not part of the solution? I do not think so, not for the people who matter, that is to say, the Government of Iraq.

Q104 Mr Havard: That is not what General Dannatt says.

Brigadier Hughes: We are part of the problem as far as quite a lot of Shia militant fighters are concerned in south-east Iraq, in Basra. We are absolutely part of the solution as far as the Government of Iraq is concerned. If we are to make sure in the very difficult, dangerous fight for wealth and power that is going on in Basra that the Government of Iraq is actually going to have to have a say, then we still play a significant part in backing that up as guarantors, as the Minister said. As to the issue of whether, when we come out of Basra Palace, things are going to get much worse in the COB and the fact that 85/90 per cent of the attacks against us are against us and, therefore, if we were not there, would not be happening, it is hugely difficult to ascertain that. People have got it wrong on a number of occasions in the last couple of years by trying to forecast where we are going to be within a set time limit, in six months or 12 months, which is why we have consistently given this message about it being condition-based. We have an idea of what we think will happen when Basra Palace is handed back. We have an idea of what we think, and plans for what we think, will happen when we get provincial Iraqi control in Basra, but we cannot be certain about that because there are so many shifting dynamics that we need to be alive to the fact that we keep with the conditions and, when the conditions allow, we are then able to make another move, and that is why it has been so difficult, nay impossible, to put a time-frame on it.

Q105 Mr Jenkin: Would you describe victory in this rather unsatisfactory situation as the handing over of security and political control in Basra province to forces which are answerable to the Iraqi Government which can control the situation in Basra, if not necessarily create Hampstead Garden Suburb, and the orderly withdrawal of the British and Coalition Forces from southern Iraq? Would that constitute victory in the circumstances?

Brigadier Hughes: I think it has been quite a long time since anybody has talked about victory in Iraq and I certainly would not try and define victory in Iraq; I think it is the wrong word. I think we can try and define success and that is in line with the strategy that we are following at the moment. It is about making sure that the people, through the national Government and the provincial Government, have a say about how they run their lives in Basra and elsewhere and can, through that share of the national and provincial governments, lead a reasonable life. It is about making sure that the criminal elements that the Minister has talked about, the militant on militant and the various political parties down there do not grab the cake and cut it amongst themselves and leave out the Government and the people of Basra, and it is about us coming away in good order. Those are the sorts of definitions that we would see laid out for success rather than victory, Mr Jenkin.

Q106 Mr Jenkin: So we can safely assume that success is achievable, otherwise you would not be sitting here and that would not be the military advice that the Minister would be accepting, and we can safely assume that we believe that to be achievable?

Mr Ainsworth: Success is achievable in those terms.

Q107 Mr Jenkin: In those very limited terms.

Mr Ainsworth: Hampstead Garden Suburb, as you said, it will be a long, long time before we get to that.

Q108 Mr Jenkin: Therefore, a timetable for precipitate withdrawal would threaten that success?

Mr Ainsworth: Yes.

Q109 Mr Jenkin: And we need to understand that?

Mr Ainsworth: Yes.

Mr Jones: Can I just come back, Brigadier, to what you have just said and just reiterate what General Dannatt said, that we are "exacerbating the security problems" and he warned that the Army would "break" if we kept it there too long. Now, I have to say, it is a position I sympathise with and, although I perhaps do not approve of his methods of getting a message across through the newspapers, this is clearly a big division between the official line that is coming out of the MoD that somehow we are not the problem and, I have to say, when we were in Iraq, it is a position which is actually shared by some senior people on the ground in Basra, that we are becoming the problem. If you have got a senior military figure saying that, if we stay there too long, the Army is going to "break", that is a very serious position. Now, you are saying that we are not part of the problem, so clearly there is a division there, but someone is either wrong or there is this huge division between the MoD and General Dannatt. Now, both cannot be right and, if we have got that huge chasm which is clearly there and, I have to say, I do concur more with General Dannatt's position on this than I do the MoD's position, but someone has got to get some reality into this because, if we do not, we are going to have a situation whereby not only are we going to continue being the problem, but we are actually going to lose more people there and, if the general is right, it is going to have tremendous effects on the ability of, and morale in, the Army. Therefore, someone has got to be honest and say that General Dannatt is right or actually sack him.

Q110 Chairman: It may be better for the Minister to answer that question.

Mr Ainsworth: We are not planning to keep the levels of force in south-east Iraq that we have got currently there over the long term. We are actively in the process of handing over to the Iraqis. We have handed over three provinces and we are now in discussions on the fourth province. We are going to be able to take down numbers to some degree if we achieve that fourth province handover and we go to over-watch in the fourth province, but we are still going to have to, for a period of time, and I am not prepared to define the period of time, keep sufficient people there to be able to provide that ultimate back-up and to protect themselves, but we are not planning to stay in the numbers that we are currently in south-east Iraq over the long period. What the Committee thinks General Dannatt has done or has not done, and I am not dead sure we are not conflating two stories here, and there have been recently some comments that were attributed to him from, how long ago, a year ago or something like that and maybe the Committee needs to talk to General Dannatt about it ----

Mr Jones: Minister, let us be clear. What I would say to you is they may think, "We may need just to keep it going for a bit longer then and the Brits are going to break and they will off", and this does not play very well actually in that theatre when you are trying to do a job. Frankly, this is the sort of thing that plays into the hands of the opposition rather than helping you do a constructive job on the ground. That is my concern.

Q111 Chairman: Minister, your own reaction to this memorandum was that you said that it was the sort of information that had been around for years and you were yourself surprised that it was front-page news.

Mr Ainsworth: I think I saw the story while I was out there. I am not dead certain about that, but I think I saw the story while I was out there. I could not understand, I think it was, was it, the front page of The Telegraph that I saw, and I did not know why it was on the front page of The Telegraph. I have seen papers over the period since I have been appointed and that says that there is not an awful lot left in the locker, that we have got a couple of battle groups with the commitments that we have got at the moment to respond to circumstances that may arise, so why someone would take that comment from a leaked document and stick it on the front page of a national newspaper, that was my reaction to it, that I did not quite understand it.

Mr Holloway: I would like to ask Mr Bowen what sort of numbers do you think we might be in in Iraq in five years' time and what sort of conjecture have you done with regard to American force levels, say, in five years' time with, as we know, a change in president, and is it true that they are building bases for the very long term?

Chairman: I would like to stop that question there because we are just about to get on to a slightly different question that moves in the same general direction from David Crausby, but Brian Jenkins, you wanted to fill in.

Mr Jenkins: Yes, Chairman, a few minutes ago, on the same issue.

Chairman: There was a queue.

Q112 Mr Jenkins: I know, there is always a queue. Minister, you will be aware of the situation in Basra. When you refer to criminality and small, petty criminality at times, Sunni militia are not small or petty criminals, and they may be a part of the solution as well as being a part of the problem. Have you considered and looked at what approach we can take in establishing the rule of law - which we are all obliged to do - in Basra, when you know these militias are funded by the large-scale theft of oil. You know that the measuring equipment has been switched off so that no one can tell how much oil they have been pinching, you know that this stuff goes into a port, it is brought on board a tanker and the tanker sails out. This is not something that can slip out in the middle of the night, so who is responsible for trying to control the export of this stolen oil and the funding of the militia? Is it somebody maybe in the Government that is overseeing this operation, because this militia is a long term ally of theirs; how do we come to grips with this? Our Forces are not the right people to do this possibly, but what is the situation with regard to the large scale theft of this oil which is funding the struggle against us?

Mr Ainsworth: I hope I did not refer to petty criminality; I am sure there is petty criminality going on in Basra as there is in my own constituency, Coventry North East. It is the grand scale criminality that is a huge part of the problem in the south, there is no doubt about it; we are not dealing with the sectarian divide as they are in other parts of Iraq, these people are religiously and ethnically cohesive, but there are sections of the community there and the power structures there who are lining their own pockets at the expense of their own people. The whole purpose of our supporting the Iraqi security forces in terms of the police and the army and urging the Government to take effective action and trying to advise them on the action that they are taking, in order to try to get a grip of that the Iraqi Government need to appreciate the huge importance of Basra. It is their window on the world, 85% to 90% of their wealth goes out through that city, it is of vital importance to the future of Iraq. The very fact that we have started the process of handing control to the Iraqi security forces has focused the mind on the dangers from their point of view. I do not think that we would have seen the appointments of Mohan and Jalil, with the kind of remit that I hope they have been given to do, if that focus had not come to the fore. We can only hope that those appointments continue to achieve the good start that they have made and that they are backed up when they start to take the difficult decisions that they are going to have to take. The police in particular; if we are going to be able to sort out some of the problems that there are with the police, where corruption and infiltration has been a difficulty, then there are going to have to be difficult things done by the command structure and the Government of Iraq is going to have to back them up. We are going to have to inform the Government of Iraq and support the Government of Iraq in those difficult decisions they have to take over the coming period.

Q113 Mr Jenkins: But these are tankers, Ministers. These are actually tankers that are sailing out with stolen oil. If we are in control of the Straits, if we are in control of the port, how can they slip past us? Who is turning a blind eye here?

Mr Ainsworth: There is no turning of a blind eye on the part of British Forces; British Forces gather intelligence, try to exercise what force and power that they can and are trying to build the capacity of the Iraqis themselves so that we have an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem. As the Brigadier said earlier, the people who want us out are the people who have a vested interest in that continuing; it is not the Government of Iraq, it is the people who have a vested interest in that continuing and them being allowed to continue to rip off their own people; they are the people who want us out.

Q114 Chairman: Minister, before we move on can I ask one question arising out of something you said, namely that one of the important roles of the British military is to train the Iraqi Army. A witness who came before us a month ago said that the issue is not training, it is loyalty. How would you comment on that?

Mr Ainsworth: The issue is training, there is a capacity problem. We have almost single-handedly taken on the role of trying to recreate the Iraqi Navy down at Um-Qasr, actually giving them the ability to do the job. That is an important part of it and we should not just wipe that off the board, but loyalty is hugely important. Certainly, the commanders of the Army need to know that the Army is on side for what they are attempting to achieve, and that is stability, loyalty to an Iraqi state. That has got to be the first priority; Mohan and Habib recognise that and they recognise the importance of that and, yes, I would put that higher than training.

Q115 Chairman: But if you would put loyalty higher than training you would accept, I think, that loyalty cannot be imposed by foreign troops.

Mr Ainsworth: No, it cannot be imposed by foreign troops.

Brigadier Hughes: There is clearly an issue of loyalty and affiliation, whether that be tribal or familial or political. What we have found with the Iraqi Army is that working outside their own area, outside their own locale, they have been impressive on a number of operations, not least the three battalions of the 10th Division who have been working in Baghdad as part of the current surge operation. Where we have had difficulties is where Basra battalions or those recruited from Basra have been asked to work in Basra, and you can imagine the reasons why, it must be immensely difficult for them. That is why, as part of the plan to bring an additional brigade, as part of a new division, into South East Iraq, one of the plans that General Habib is looking at, the commander of 10 Div, is to switch the battalions around so that those from Basra will work in Dhi Qar and those from Dhi Qar will work in Basra in order to try and get away from those local serious difficulties and challenges that the loyalty issue makes them face, Chairman.

Chairman: That is very helpful, thank you. David Crausby.

Q116 Mr Crausby: You made the comment, Minister, that we are not planning to stay in Iraq long term.

Mr Ainsworth: In the numbers we are at the moment.

Q117 Mr Crausby: And that was very much supported last week when the Ministry of Defence announced a further reduction in troops of 500 conditional upon the handover of Basra Palace to Iraqi security control. Can you tell us something about the process of drawdown and what conditions will be necessary for us to make some further progress. I understand the legitimate sensitivity about numbers and I accept that you would not want to give us that kind of detail, but can you give us some indication as to what the conditions would be?

Mr Ainsworth: You would like to lure me there in any case. On the kind of timescales that were mentioned before it is enormously difficult to think in those timescales, based on what we have got at the moment. We have got a plan that we are working on to get out of the city and to hand over the facilities that we have got in the city. We have managed successfully to hand over other facilities; the Iraqis have gone in and occupied and taken control. The next stage to that is provincial Iraqi control and we think that we can achieve that in the near future. To try to see what the consequences of that are is enormously difficult. What will be the reaction of these various forces that are currently fighting over the schools in Basra city; if we are not there and they are not able to focus on us, does that give a new opportunity to people like General Mohan to peel off certain elements of them to gain the loyalty of parts of them to get effective control? It is very difficult to see. I do not think you can plan too far ahead of provincial Iraqi control; we have to get the plan in place and executed to hand over control of the city, we have to see the consequences of that. If the consequences allow us to move on to provincial control and get that done, then after we see the shape of that we have got to talk to the Iraqi Government and, yes, our Coalition partners about what further contribution they want from us, what further contribution we are capable of making, what they want from us on an ongoing basis, what we can offer going forward. You cannot really have those conversations until you get there, until you see the shape of it and until you see the consequences of handing over that fourth province to the Iraqis.

Q118 Mr Crausby: There is clearly a minimum force level, there cannot be a lot below what we are now and it is that that we are interested in. You clearly cannot drop down by 500, 500, 500 to a point where we are not able to protect our forces, and we must be coming close to that point.

Mr Ainsworth: The force is not self-sustaining and able to protect itself and do the other work that it has to do below about 5000, so we are approaching the levels where we cannot go further.

Q119 Mr Crausby: The Secretary of State said we will then be in a position of over-watch after we have reduced by the 500. The point we are interested in is, is over-watch that necessary within Iraq itself and to what extent could we provide effective over-watch from outside Iraq, in Kuwait for instance?

Mr Ainsworth: That is what we have got to see.

Q120 Chairman: We would not expect details.

Mr Ainsworth: That is what we are going to have to see and that is what we are going to have to talk about when we see what over-watch is. If it goes as smoothly as the other three provinces then there can be real hope and we can discuss that situation at the time, but until we see what it is - in an actual over-watch situation we cannot get much below 5000 because we have to be able to sustain the force and self-protect the force itself, so over-watch in itself does not take us down a lot lower than that.

Q121 Mr Jones: A simple question; what is over-watch?

Mr Ainsworth: What is over-watch? Over-watch is being there, able in the absolute extreme to offer support, but to stand back and allow the Iraqi Forces themselves to try to deal with the situations that arise.

Chairman: You have been talking about Provincial Iraqi Control, Minister. Willie Rennie.

Q122 Willie Rennie: You have already mentioned that you would hope to achieve Provincial Iraqi Control in the near future, and I can understand why you do not want to be any more precise about that, but why has it been so difficult and would you respond to our concern that the reason why it has not already been achieved is for domestic American purposes rather than the ability of the Iraqi military to be able to cope in the South?

Mr Ainsworth: We are a sovereign nation and there is a process that needs to be gone through in order to get to Provincial Iraqi Control. We have not got sole control of that process, that is true, the Iraqi Government themselves have been part of that, our allies have been part of that, so those discussions have to take place and we have to be part of that. It is not true to say that it is the Americans who are preventing that; the biggest single part of that discussion is the discussion with the Iraqi Security Forces themselves: what is their capacity, what is their capability, are they ready for it? We may be approaching that point where they are.

Q123 Willie Rennie: If we had already achieved the military capability, surely that is the overriding factor rather than the domestic politics of perhaps another country.

Mr Ainsworth: They need to understand as well the consequences of us going to over-watch and what we will and what we will not do. It is no good them accepting provincial control and assuming that we are going to come in and support them on a regular basis because that will not be the situation.

Mr Bowen: Can I just say that there are criteria and some of the criteria that need to be dealt with cannot be dealt with in a completely objective and scientific way. There are four criteria: one is about the security situation, another is about the state of the Iraqi Security Forces and their ability to cope, another is about the state of governance - in other words the political control and the processes - and the fourth is the ability of the multinational forces to support Provincial Iraqi Control. There are therefore some very clear categories, against which we can report in order to make the case for Provincial Iraqi Control and then there is a process which has been established which involves submitting to Baghdad, and in Baghdad both the Coalition and the Iraqi Government coming together to agree that province X or province Y is ready for transfer. That same process has been applied not just in the South but elsewhere and fairly recently in the North.

Q124 Willie Rennie: You do not believe that domestic US politics were a significant factor in the decision not to transfer already.

Mr Bowen: There is a process. All I can say is there is a process which is Iraq-based, in Baghdad, involving the multinational forces and the Iraqi Government and that is what has determined the PIC of provinces across Iraq.

Q125 Chairman: Can you tell us what the current status of the Governor of Basra is, please?

Mr Ainsworth: Well, he is ...

Q126 Chairman: It sounds as though the answer is no.

Mr Ainsworth: It is in the public domain and everybody knows that there have been attempts to remove the governor from within the structures within Basra. The Prime Minister himself has said that he should cease to operate and no longer has effective office there; nonetheless he does continue to operate. That is a matter for the Iraqis at the end of the day, we cannot intervene in that, we can only say to the Iraqi Government it is not an aid to stability that they are unable to sort that situation out, they need to get that situation sorted out one way or another and they need to bring clarity to that. It would be a huge help if they did.

Q127 Willie Rennie: Going to the other provinces that have already handed over to PIC, how are they performing in terms of security and politics and what has our role been in those provinces since they were handed over?

Mr Ainsworth: We have not had to intervene.

Brigadier Hughes: We have on a couple of occasions.

Mr Ainsworth: Two of the provinces have been better than the other in terms of the degree of problems that there have been. Maysaan has been the more difficult of the three, but by and large the Iraqis have dealt with those problems themselves. The Brigadier can give you some information on the interventions that we have had to make.

Brigadier Hughes: We will go round clockwise. In Al-Muthanna, which was the first to go, west of Basra, it has been largely peaceful but it is largely desert as well, which is one of the reasons for the peace. It was interesting actually that straight after it gained PIC the Australians, who had been there - along with the Japanese but the Australians were looking after the security as part of MND (South East) - tried paying an early visit to the governor in Al Muthanna just to check that everything was okay; they were given a pretty quick cold shoulder: we are now looking after this, we no longer require you in Muthanna and, indeed, we have never had to re-intervene there. Dhi Qar has been a little more problematic, particularly recently in An Nasiriyah, the main city in Dhi Qar, where there have been similar sorts of militant JAM versus Iraqi Police Service issues that have been going on in Basra. There was a stand-off there a few weeks ago which the Iraqi Security Forces dealt with, with Coalition support, but when I say "Coalition support" it was air support and ISTAR - that is surveillance and target acquisition assets - rather than boots on the ground. In Maysaan, again, there have been some challenges up there but it is worth saying that actually what is going on in Maysaan is difficult to tell, even when you are there, so some of this is grey to us. There have certainly been issues with militias and the police service in Maysaan; the Iraqis have dealt with that largely themselves and the only intervention there has been into Maysaan Province, again quite recently, over the last two or three weeks, which has been a national operation because even after a province has PIC'd the national government keeps responsibility for terrorism. There was a Coalition operation, a US operation, into Maysaan which Prime Minister Maliki approved and Prime Minister Maliki gave down to there, but we have not re-intervened at provincial level back into Maysaan. The short answer is that there have been one or two blips, as we expected, this is not peace, love and harmony through three provinces, nobody would pretend that, but it has been largely good. Basra, of course, is a different order of issue because of the population, oil, etc.

Q128 Willie Rennie: Relations between the central government and these provinces on terrorism or anything that is reserved to the central government, how are they developing?

Brigadier Hughes: Normally on a mobile phone. It is that, it is the personal relationships that you see out there; if something is going to go off it does need the Prime Minister or his known representative to make a call, it cannot be done in the administrative way that we would recognise here.

Q129 Willie Rennie: Relationships are good?

Brigadier Hughes: They are mixed, and it depends on who is after what at any one time, so you will find that Governor Wa'ili, for example, will quite often say "I need to go and check with Baghdad" and then at other times he will ignore Baghdad, so they shift around depending on who is after what, frankly, but they exist, the relationships exist.

Q130 Mr Jenkin: Just as a supplementary and as a linked question, that sort of Maysaan operation that we have been doing, is that the sort of thing we might continue doing from the position of over-watch after transition?

Brigadier Hughes: It is possible. What we do not envisage in over-watch is one package fits all, so if the Iraqi Security Forces were going to ask us for support once they have got provincial control, we do not envisage them necessarily meaning that we have got to put a battle group into the middle of the city. What they might be short of is intelligence and surveillance assets, so it might be just flying something high up, or it might be another niche capability or a piece of logistics that they need putting in place. We foresee in over-watch maybe nothing or maybe very limited and a scaled approach to it.

Q131 Mr Jenkin: To carry on giving MNF a little rest, could you give us a thumbnail sketch from a military viewpoint, where are the Iraqi Armed Forces now in terms of capability and development, particularly the 10th Division, what more do they need?

Brigadier Hughes: The 10th Division, as I have said, has had some genuine success and we have been pleased and we have had people with them whilst they have had that success, with battalions up in Baghdad and with some operations down in Basra Province and elsewhere in South East Iraq. They do have routine control alongside the police, but largely it is the Army in the three provinces that we have mentioned that have already gone to PIC. They have had effect in some of the operations in Basra; where we have seen difficulty is where the loyalty issue then comes into play and, as I have said, we have been trying to address that. In terms of equipment levels, they are well-equipped at the moment with their frontline kit so they have got 100% of the up-armoured Humvees that they were due to get and their other vehicles and equipment. The British Government has put £54 million through ASIRIS into 10 Div as well as the equipment that has flowed down from Baghdad, originally from the Coalition and now from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence. Where they still lack and we know they still lack is at the rear end; they have not got a big logistics footprint yet, but that was planned, they do lack some of the intelligence assets, but are they a reasonable force, given where they have come from in the timeframe that they have come from, yes they are. Do they have problems? Yes, they do. In terms of the defence border, the Department for Border Enforcement (the DBE) we continue to mentor them. We have seen them make quite impressive strides at some of the key crossing points with the Iran-Iraq border where we have tightened up some of the real issues there, and it was where a lot of the smuggling was going on - it is where some of the smuggling is still going on because you are not going to stop that. They continue to be taken forward and, as I say, we continue with the SSR process on that. The Iraqi Police Service is the biggest challenge; there is no doubt about that and it remains so in Basra. We identified quite a while ago and we have continued to work on this with the Iraqis, on getting the Iraqi Police Service in Basra as best as it can possibly be. Effectively there is a small, murderous, criminal element within the Iraqi Police Force which we have to root out, and indeed we have upped our strike and detention operations against them in recent months in order to do that because they are truly irreconcilable. There are those within the Police Force whom General Jalil, for example, has said recently are totally incompetent and will always be so. If that is the case then we need to drive forward with trying to get them out of the Police Force in some way. Jalil is charged with that and only the Iraqi Government is going to be able to do that, with some sort of resettlement package if you like that is going to keep them quiet once they have gone. The rest are trainable and we continue to train where we can - during Operation SINBAD last year, for example, going into every police station to make sure that certain standards were met - and with some of their leadership out at the Joint Leadership Academy which is at the operating base at the air station now, and we are getting quite a lot of senior police through. We understand, therefore, what a problem the Iraqi Police Service in Basra is, but we are doing what we can to put that right as far as we are able.

Q132 Mr Jenkin: Very briefly, because you have given very comprehensive answers, but two very brief questions, how long is it going to take before we can take our hands off so to speak?

Brigadier Hughes: We do not know. We know that we can continue to do what we can, but to some extent that SSR timeline will not be the driver because you will be driven by other timelines as well about Provincial Iraqi Control, so it is when the Iraqis decide and the Coalition decides that we are ready for transition that you will come to a view then as to what to take forward post-transition into PIC. We have programmes where we can tick off units, but to give you a dead stop time I could not do.

Q133 Mr Jenkin: Concerns that were expressed to us about the Iraqi Government being very slow at their equipment programmes; would you agree with that and can that be addressed?

Brigadier Hughes: It can be addressed. We have people inside the Iraqi MoD - in fact we are putting another procurement specialist in in the next couple of weeks. They have been slow; one of the issues is the anti-corruption law that the Coalition put in place to try and address some of the very serious corruption. That makes people quite frightened to sign contracts, but we do have people in place to try and drive that forward.

Chairman: That struck us as being improved in terms of the Iraqi Government actually procuring equipment over last year. Dai Havard.

Q134 Mr Havard: Within that, however, we had a meeting with the Defence Minister while we were there and he was very clear that General Mohan's appointment in Basra was an important step in unifying command and control for all security assets - that was the euphemism for going in and trying to sort the thing out and give a consistent, coherent pattern there. The resources he has at his disposal to do that, however, we also discussed that, and it is this 5th Brigade within the 10th Division and this 14th Division that apparently is going to appear and is going to apparently drop out of the sky as far as I am concerned. I have little confidence, frankly, that that is going to come on the timeframe that they were telling us and is going to be equipped - given our experience of 12 months to get to the stage we are with the 10th Division. Can you say something about that because this really relates to how long we are going to stay and what we are going to do, and this business about their capacity there to do it. General Mohan may well be able to knock heads together and accommodate militias and have some architecture of control; however, what resources have you got to actually police it?

Mr Ainsworth: The equipment is there for the existing people, the existing 10th Division.

Q135 Mr Havard: The 10th Division, yes.

Mr Ainsworth: The idea is that they grow the 5th Brigade of 10th Division; they are already part way there, but they are not fully equipped, so they are still in the process of being formed, and then at some stage after that you can effectively split the division and create 14th Division and effect this turnaround that the Brigadier talked about, so that we can get the Basra-based people out of Basra and into the other provinces.

Q136 Mr Havard: It is like the South Wales Police beating up South Wales miners - I have seen it, yes, I know that.

Mr Ainsworth: It is a big job and whether they have got the numbers yet is part of the conversation that we are having.

Q137 Mr Havard: They have not got the equipment, they have not got the capacity, they are not there. They are a fiction.

Mr Ainsworth: At the same time that they are saying that they have not got the numbers and they are attempting to grow their capacity, they are equally beginning to express their confidence in being able to take over in Basra town and being able to take over in the province. We have to balance that conversation, we have to understand that conversation and they have to understand the size of the job they are taking on.

Q138 Mr Havard: The Defence Minister seemed to think they would be there and they would be available by September. I am afraid I do not share his confidence.

Mr Ainsworth: Who will be there by September?

Q139 Mr Havard: The 14th Division.

Mr Ainsworth: I do not think that is the timescale that people are working to but I am not very sure.

Brigadier Hughes: Not everybody is giving the same date. You are right to be sceptical, things do not normally run to time. We have had some people say September at the left hand scale of it; we have heard some say early in the new year, January. Somewhere in there is probably about right, but the important thing here - and we have genuinely seen signs of this - is the Government recognising the importance of Basra. It is always uppermost in their minds, for perfectly understandable reasons, that Baghdad comes first and so a lot of the equipment flow has gone straight into Baghdad. If there is a genuine belief that Mohan can deliver, and in the importance of Basra, we will see it come on line quicker.

Q140 Chairman: Is the entire purpose of this 14th Division to allow for the stationing of Basra troops out of Basra and other troops into Basra, or is that not?

Mr Ainsworth: It is a big part of it, whether it is the only part I am not too sure.

Brigadier Hughes: It is not the sole reason, Chairman. The reason was that there was a recognition that were not enough army battalions in the province and elsewhere in MND (South East), but it is a pretty key side effect for us that we now are able to do that.

Q141 Chairman: Can I ask when you first heard of this 14th Division?

Brigadier Hughes: Yes, two or three months ago. That is from my memory but it is about that sort of time scale as to when it was being put forward.

Mr Havard: I have to raise a question with you, which is in my head: I look at Anbar and that is a question of having local resources there take control locally, and trying to then assimilate them into the normal forces of Iraq and the national Army process. I am just wondering, in terms of actually winning that capacity in Basra, whether or not Mohan has to do that sort of exercise, because I do not see this capacity coming from anywhere else on the timescale that they are talking about and, more importantly, which chimes back into the point that was being made earlier on, how long we can stay and how long apparently we can afford to stay. It is a rhetorical question.

Chairman: Let us assume that is rhetorical and move on to the police.

Q142 Willie Rennie: You have actually greatly covered some of my questions; I just have another couple. You did not mention much about the militias in Basra but there is quite a significant militia infiltration. Some people view it as being reasonably stable, even if they only patrol their own areas and protect their own circumstance. How do you deal with that, do you accept that or what method is there to try and root out the inappropriate lines of accountability here?

Mr Ainsworth: This harks back to some of the questions we were talking about, about what General Mohan is up to in some of the conversations that he is having. What is the raison d'etre of some of the militias, even some of those that may be attacking us, what is their motive, what are they up to, are they winnable, are they fundamentally prepared to support the Iraqi state at some point? If so they are worth talking to and they are worth trying to win over. If they are totally maligned, for whatever reason, supporting corrupt political processes or with a political motive that is totally contrary to the well-being of the country, then they are not. Getting that understanding, seeing who can win and who cannot win, is an important part of what has got to go on. On top of that, coming back to the rhetorical point, you have to try to get effective forces into the area and if they are being intimidated because their families live alongside these elements of the JAM and they are unable to operate, then commanders have to try and deal with that. If they can deal with that by rotation then they are going to do so.

Q143 Willie Rennie: If the UK Forces were to withdraw could our police trainers still be there to support the police; would that be something that would be safe?

Mr Ainsworth: We do some of the training out in the COB. The further we withdraw then the more difficult it is for us to operate. If we see a transformed situation, if we see a new attitude, then we will have that ability, but potentially it is going to be more difficult, is it not?

Chairman: We touched earlier on the surge, but let us get back to that in a bit more detail now. Bernard Jenkin.

Q144 Mr Jenkin: I am bound to preface my question by pointing out that we did get very diverse opinions on whether the surge was the right thing or the wrong thing from the British military, underlining a point made by Mr Jones, and I would say the British military is very divided and publicly divided. Would you recognise that that is a problem that you are inheriting in terms of the capacity of the Armed Forces to deliver, that some of the Armed Forces are campaigning for Britain to get out whilst some are trying to succeed in what they are doing. Do you recognise that as a problem?

Mr Ainsworth: There may be scepticism about whether or not the surge will succeed, but it is too early ---

Q145 Mr Jenkin: My question was really about the state of the morale of our Armed Forces.

Mr Ainsworth: Our Armed Forces.

Q146 Mr Jenkin: Yes, which are divided, with some branches of the Armed Forces actively campaigning to get us out of Iraq as quickly as possible because of the overstretch. Do you actually recognise that that is a problem?

Mr Ainsworth: I saw no evidence of morale problems.

Q147 Mr Jenkin: Not in Iraq, the problem is back home.

Mr Ainsworth: As a matter of fact I was surprised by the high morale that there is there.

Q148 Mr Jenkin: So were we, we were very impressed, but back home in the Ministry of Defence.

Mr Ainsworth: They were upbeat there, doing the job that they joined the Army to do and there is not a morale problem there at all.

Q149 Mr Jenkin: I totally agree with that, but in the Ministry of Defence you are inheriting a very big problem with some senior military officers actively almost campaigning publicly to get us out, at the same time as other branches of the Armed Forces are desperately trying to succeed. Is that not really a result of a long period of protracted overstretch which is what General Dannatt was referring to?

Mr Ainsworth: You know that I am new to the department.

Q150 Mr Jenkin: I know.

Mr Ainsworth: My impression is that there is - and this is out there as well - an intelligent conversation going on about how long we can continue to do the things that we can do, how important it is to hand on that job to the Iraqis themselves, and it is right that people discuss those issues and examine those issues, and that is taking place. We are at this transition point, as the Brigadier said, which is an enormously difficult position.

Chairman: We will move on to the Surge, please.

Q151 Mr Jenkin: We heard some very positive assessment of the Surge, but perhaps I could ask the Brigadier, would you not agree that the Surge is really about increased manoeuvrability and capability, it is not a policy, an end in itself?

Brigadier Hughes: There have been a number of successes that have come from the Surge. The figures for vehicle-borne IEDs are down; the figures for murders of civilians are significantly down. It is true to say that that additional security that has come in Baghdad has not just been displaced somewhere else; in some of the other provinces AQI in particular is being given a hard time, but I do not think that General Petraeus ever said that the Surge was an end in itself, what he was trying to do was to give some time for the politics to breathe. Also, there are two measures which people will be looking closely at which we do not have a feel for yet fully: to what extent the breathing space that the military surge has given in the security situation - and I think it has - has allowed the politics to breathe, and to what extent are the Iraqi Security Forces able to back up what has largely been this Coalition surge. Those are the two questions which remain unanswered as of today.

Q152 Mr Jenkin: Could you say something that we heard a little about, which is the rewriting of the campaign plan for the Coalition, putting politics at the top of the agenda as opposed to merely the suppression of violence, because this was a very positive development?

Brigadier Hughes: I can say very little about it because I saw only little of it when I was last in Baghdad two or three weeks ago. It is being rewritten, it is not yet out. I do not know any senior officer in Baghdad on the military side who does not understand that it is about politics, not about security; everybody gets that a bit of it is security, but people do get the bigger piece.

Q153 Linda Gilroy: In that context, Minister, what significance do you attach to the recent White House report which concluded that there had been satisfactory progress on only 8 of the 18 benchmarks which were set out?

Mr Ainsworth: It was only an interim report and, you are right, the amount of progress that could be reported was partial. I do not think there are too many conclusions that can be drawn yet on whether or not the Surge has had the success that people hoped it would, and we really will have to wait for the report that will be made in September and the assessment that will be done then.

Q154 Linda Gilroy: The report sets out a variety of benchmarks, some of which are to do with creating security and what might be described as leading indicators, whereas some of the other things, the things that have not been met, include things like satisfactory legislation for de-Ba'athification, hydrocarbon resources, provincial law, an amnesty law, and it is on the whole those more political ones that are not being met. Those might be described more as lagging indicators that will take more time to achieve - the sort of breathing space that Chris Hughes referred to just now. Do you think, therefore, that the benchmarks set out a realistic set of indicators on which we should be judging things, our allies should be judging things, come September?

Mr Ainsworth: You are right that the politics are potentially the area that is lagging, and if we do not get some agreement on hydrocarbons then the ability of the Iraqis to build trust across the various regions and across the communities is going to be damaged, so those political benchmarks plus a real reaching out to the Sunni community are essential, otherwise all of the effort that has been made during the surge will not have that backfill.

Q155 Linda Gilroy: Do you have any sense from your experience thus far of how far the Iraqi Government is successfully moving to bridging the sectarian divide?

Mr Ainsworth: I do not yet; I did not manage to get up there, as I said, and I have not really got a good handle on how far progress is being made there.

Q156 Linda Gilroy: Is it perhaps something that Desmond could comment on?

Mr Bowen: Chairman, actually from the beginning when the Surge was first announced the intention was to put politics and indeed economics in the frontline and, through better security, to provide an opportunity for Iraqis to take charge of their own destiny and make politics work and indeed make economics operate in a way that would be helpful overall but, not least, helpful in showing that the Iraqis could take charge of their own destiny in that way. What we would say is that reconciliation and the whole business of politics in Iraq has been slower and more complicated than we would like; that is very much the area where we would like to see good progress and it is fair to say that we are disappointed that things are not moving forward more quickly. The hydrocarbons law is an absolute classic in terms of the interaction of economics and politics, and that is something on which some progress has been made but it has not got to the point where it is resolved. The same can be said on some of the other issues. You talked about de-Ba'athification in the same way, amnesty, likewise on the provincial election law; is this happening as fast as we would like? No, it certainly is not. Is there cause to despair? That is something that we really cannot afford to do and we really need to be, on the political side, pushing forward - not just us and Coalition partners but the wider international community to encourage the Iraqis to do the things that need to be done in both politics and economics.

Q157 Linda Gilroy: I spent some time with the British-American Parliamentary Group over in the States just last week, and there seems to be very much a public perception in the States that the benchmarks are about military success rather than the political breathing space which has been created which may take a little longer to take root in the space that has been created. Do you think that there is a danger that there will be too much emphasis placed on assessing the military benchmarks rather than giving that space for the political benchmarks to have the time that they need to take root, and is there anything that we can do to influence that?

Mr Bowen: The 18 benchmarks were set out by Congress, so clearly very much in a political context and in a political context of some tension between the executive and the legislature.

Q158 Linda Gilroy: And the Presidential race of course, and that is something which may not be so apparent over here in the United Kingdom, that the assessment of the benchmarks now and in September are very much subject to people seeking political advantage basically.

Mr Bowen: I am sure that is the case. What the American Government, in particular Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus, have is in presenting their view from Baghdad, to be putting it in the right sort of context and making the right sort of balance between as it were the buying time and the political and economic progress. That is no doubt something that will be judged in the White House and we will be having contact with the Americans in the process.

Q159 Chairman: Before you leave the benchmarks I have a question, then Bernard Jenkin has a question, then we will come back to you. My question is do you have a sense, Mr Bowen, that the very setting of benchmarks by Western timescales, possibly to some sort of US political advantage, goes down badly in Iraq and leads to a process where they are bound to come up in some way with some sort of rather unsatisfactory result?

Mr Bowen: I cannot speak for how it is taken in Baghdad, my only comment on as it were the 18 benchmarks is that they were selected. They could have been a different set, they could have been longer or they could have been different. As I say, there is a political context in that which we have to recognise is there, but whether they are the optimal means of making objective judgment I will not comment.

Q160 Mr Jenkin: Is there not a much clearer message we should be conveying about these benchmarks - and maybe this is one for the Minister - in that first of all they provide an easy target for the insurgents and the terrorists to stop us achieving. Secondly, many of them are irrelevant. Frankly, the rights of minority parties in the legislature is not a top military priority or a top political priority; winning the hearts and minds of Sunni tribal leaders I would say is a massively important priority, but it is not one of the benchmarks. Is this not a rubbish way of organising a counter-insurgency campaign and would not the President be pleased if the British Government said it loudly and clearly?

Mr Ainsworth: The benchmarks have been made and the process has started. We will have to see what comes out of it in September.

Chairman: What a brilliant answer. Linda Gilroy.

Q161 Linda Gilroy: I am particularly interested if Mr Bowen has any further comments on the bridging of the sectarian divide and one of the benchmarks which has not been met in the interim report, which is on moving towards de-Ba'athification law, and also whether there is any up to date information about the questions we were asking in January, that is the release of the Sunni detainees and whether the Iraqi Government are moving towards that. If you have not got information to hand perhaps you would let the Committee have an update on the situation because that is seen as very much symbolic of the Maliki Government doing something which it does have within its control, which would show goodwill in that respect.

Mr Bowen: Chairman, we ought to give you a note on that. The one thing I would say in terms of recent developments is that the withdrawal some months ago of the large Sunni block from the Council of Representatives was reversed in recent days, so they have now reverted as it were to being part of that assembly. How has that come about? By way of a long and difficult process of political negotiation involving the Prime Minister and the Shia parties operating together to try and bring them back into the fold. It is not as though politics is not happening, but it is a very complex, convoluted and long drawn-out process, so it is worth saying that there is some movement but I do not think that that equals reconciliation.

Q162 Willie Rennie: There has been much said about the tribal reawakening in Anbar Province, but do you not think we should be quite cautious because it is just one province, we do not know how long it is going to last, and we do not know whether we can replicate that in other parts of the country? What is your view on the tribal reawakening?

Mr Ainsworth: There has got to be a silent hope. There is an indication that the people themselves, on the ground, object to al-Qaeda, in particular, in this case, so there has to be a silent hope. Whether we can draw too many conclusions from that that are going to be applicable in different parts of the country has yet to be seen. Tribal structures in the more rural areas are a lot stronger than they are in the cities, where there is an altogether different dynamic that goes on. We should not dismiss it.

Q163 Willie Rennie: We met Petraeus when we were out there and I was very impressed then; I thought he was very competent. I had the feeling, though - and I am trying not to be a bit like Dad's Army: "We're all doomed!" - that the die was cast and that we were kind of going through the motions for the political domestic agenda back in the States, and that really progress was not going to be significantly made in the timescales that had been talked about.

Mr Ainsworth: I have not met Petraeus yet, so I have not been able to get a handle. My visit was confined to south-east Iraq.

Q164 Chairman: Can we move on to the issue of Iran? Can you give us a brief assessment of the extent of Iranian influence in Iraq?

Mr Ainsworth: The influence is quite strong. It is long-standing. There have always been close relationships, particularly in the south; there are people who live on both sides of the border who choose not to recognise the border, and that has been so for a very long time. There is clear evidence of malign influence across the border in the Basra area. There is little doubt, when you look at some of the munitions that are being used against our people, to kill our people, they are not being made in garages in down-town Basra; they are coming from outside the area. We hope that the Iranians will take seriously the need for their active engagement in the area and their active effort to prevent the kind of things that are very, very clearly happening. It cannot be in Iran's long-term interests that we have got chaos and instability on their border; it has got to be more important to them in many ways than it is to us. We have got to use our efforts to try to convince the Iranian Government that that is the case and that they could do a lot more. It is certainly the feeling of our people on the ground that there is lots of activity coming across the border, there is lots of effective support being given and there needs to be more effort to control it.

Q165 Chairman: So, clearly, you have the sense that the Iranians are fuelling the violence. Do you think that that would continue were multinational forces to leave the MND (South-East) area?

Mr Ainsworth: I do not think it would necessarily end. It might (and this is one of the things that General Mohan says) help him to be able to focus the minds of the Iraqi Shia in Basra themselves as to where their loyalties ought to lie, because most of them are loyal to the Iraqi State; they are fundamentally nationalist in their outlook. Therefore, if it gives him more space, if he is able to say: "Right, the British have pulled out of Basra Palace, there is no British presence in our city now" - if he is able to say that to elements of the militia and able to say: "What's your excuse for the continuing violence" then that might give him the ability to make some progress in some of the dynamics he is trying to achieve on the ground.

Q166 Chairman: The Iraq Commission suggests that the UK should seek to promote the constructive engagement of Iraq's neighbours. Does that mean that you should be talking, do you think, to the Iranian Government?

Mr Ainsworth: I think we should talk to the Iranian Government. It is essential that we talk to the Iranian Government, but I think it is important that the Iraqi Government talks to the Iranian Government as well, and that they build a strong relationship. It is one of the most key relationships in the area, so Iranians can be a force for good. They can also create a huge problem, and that problem is not going to benefit them in the long-term. Whether they see it that way I am not at all sure, but dialogue would do us no harm whatsoever.

Q167 Mr Havard: That leads me on to the question about the United Nations, because I agree with all of that and I think the question of how you incentivise the neighbours in a constructive way to help solve the problem is a huge discussion. Quite clearly, the military utility of what we are doing is coming to an end and, therefore, the politics need to be taken forward. I just love the whole thing, Desmond, about the benchmarks not being an "optimal" way and Bernard's contrast of "it's a pile of rubbish"! He has obviously cancelled his subscription to the American Enterprise Institute's journals now, which is a good thing.

Mr Ainsworth: That was not what he was trying to achieve! I did not read it that way, anyway.

Mr Jenkin: It was congressional benchmarks.

Q168 Mr Havard: Yes, written by the American Enterprise Institute. The criteria by which all these things are going to be judged in terms, however, is not just in America; it is going to be in the United Nations because, at the moment, we have a coalition of the willing, essentially, prosecuting a UN mandate to help to do two things in Iraq: help the Iraqis and, also, fight al-Qaeda. The Americans see it as part of, whatever it is - the War on Terror, or whatever. So there is confusion, and that confusion will reflect itself within the UN in the renewal of the mandate discussions before the end of the calendar year, which are of crucial importance not least to us because it gives us a legitimacy there both domestically in politics but, also, practically, on the ground for things like running detention centres and so on. So how is it going to be internationalised - and it is going to be highly politicised? Can I just raise a question: it is not all going to run on the timetable of the renewal of the next President of America; there is a debate that is going to involve beyond the coalition of the willing and the Iraqi Government at that point. What is going to happen in terms of the renewal of that UN mandate discussion before the end of the calendar year? Without it what are we going to do then? If we do not get it are we going to come out?

Mr Ainsworth: I am sorry, Dai, I am struggling to understand what the question is. The question is: do we need a renewed mandate? Yes, we do. Can we operate without one? No, we cannot. So we are operating, as are the Americans, under a UN mandate that runs out on 31 December and we need a new mandate. All the rest of it is politics, is it not? We have our own politics to deal with, the Americans have their politics to deal with - that is not going to change. However, we need a new UN mandate and we need that renewed on the 31st.

Q169 Chairman: What will be the factors in helping to decide whether we get it?

Mr Ainsworth: I would suppose the factors are going to be the UN's view of what can be achieved ongoing, the necessity for our continued presence and the continued powers that they have effectively given us. I do not know what more I can say, other than those ought to be the factors.

Mr Havard: Can I ask you a direct question? In a sense, if General Mohan is successful, if the economic engine of the country, which is the South East, is helped to be secured - all the attention at the moment is about the nihilistic violence in Baghdad - is it not the case that, in fact, these questions about what happens in the South East are actually probably going to become more important in determining what comes out of that process (or equally) than some of the things that are happening in Baghdad?

Q170 Chairman: That is a "Yes" or "No" question.

Mr Ainsworth: A big part of the renewal process is going to be the Iraqi Government and whether or not they see the need for renewal and the method of renewal. If they want us to continue to do the job that we are doing they are going to have to support renewal. We hope they do see the necessity for that.

Q171 Mr Havard: How we configure ourselves and what we do in that intervening period - whether it is withdraw troops, come down, move out - is taking on a different significance, is it not?

Mr Ainsworth: I think that is not what is steering our policy at the moment. What is steering our policy at the moment is our assessment of the situation on the ground in the South East and whether or not we are in a position to hand over control of that fourth province to the Iraqis. That is at the forefront. Everybody I talk to - that is what they are focused on.

Chairman: This is obviously a matter of great importance to us.

Mr Havard: And General Dannatt's assessment of whether it will "break" the Army.

Q172 Mr Jenkins: Minister, some simple questions on equipment. How are the new Mastiffs performing in theatre? Do you rate them?

Mr Ainsworth: I had an opportunity to have a look at them and talk to the people who were using them. They appear to be a pretty impressive piece of kit to me, but, more importantly, the people who are actually using them have a high degree of confidence in them; they like what they have given; they feel that there is a level of security there that is fitting to the job that they are being asked to do. So, yes, they are very, very enthusiastic about not only the Mastiff but the Bulldog as well.

Q173 Mr Jenkins: Do we have enough of them?

Mr Ainsworth: Every army would always like more, but we have got this new kit into the field pretty quickly. I think that is recognised out there. Certainly we are able to use it for the operations that are necessary.

Q174 Mr Jenkins: Every army wants more, as you said, but there is a need to make sure they are provided with enough to do the job.

Mr Ainsworth: Yes.

Q175 Mr Jenkins: We can replace the soft-skin vehicles with these vehicles when they are appropriate. So we have to make sure there are enough of them.

Mr Ainsworth: Outside of those who involve themselves in these issues there is a notion that there is a "one size fits all" and that certain of our vehicles are beyond their sell-by date and have to be replaced in their entirety. Now, as I have had explained to me over the last few weeks and graphically on the ground by the people who are doing these operations, that is not the case; they configure the operations with the kit that they have got and they use the appropriate vehicles in the appropriate circumstances. So when we are sending convoys into Basra there is still a need for Land Rovers to get in among the small streets in the city itself, but they are not the front line of the approach. The convoy is constructed in order to do the job that it is there to do. People feel - or they certainly said to me - that they have the equipment to do that; they are able to successfully get into the city, but, yes, they are still using snatch vehicles, and they are needed for certain operations.

Q176 Mr Jenkins: That was a full answer, Minister. Very often when people talk a lot we have to go back and have a look at what they are saying. I did ask you: do we have enough? What I wanted to make sure is that we are not configuring for the equipment we have got, we are configuring for the job we are trying to undertake. Whilst we accept the Army has a long tradition of "putting up and doing with" equipment I want to be sure that we are not exposing them to any greater risk than their normal job entails by saying: "Yes, we do have enough, we believe, in theatre at the present time".

Mr Ainsworth: What I got when I was out there was an enormous amount of pleasure at the amount of new equipment that had been provided over the period of time. People were very pleased at what had been got to them. If you ask them whether or not they could do with some more, I am certain that they would say that they could.

Mr Jenkins: You say the amount of equipment we have got there is very appreciable. Good, because we had a lot of trouble with our urgent operational requirements procedure, did we not, to start with? It took a few months before we could get up to speed. Are we satisfied now that it is performing effectively? Before you tell me it is (which I would expect, at any rate) would you like to send us a note on how you assess and evaluate the effectiveness of it, how it was operating 18 months or two years ago and what improvements have been made since then, so we can actually see a quantifiable assessment of how effective it has become.

Chairman: This is the UORs?

Q177 Mr Jenkins: Yes.

Mr Ainsworth: Just because we are able to raise a UOR and raise a UOR in pretty short order does not mean to say that, hey presto, off the shelf is the stuff that we want there and available immediately. Various stuff has to be procured, it has to be found and it has to be bought and shipped out to theatre. Everything that I am being told is that that process is running reasonably smoothly and that we are able to get the kit out to our people that they need. Everything I saw on the ground was that they have the kit they need; that there has been a big improvement over a period of time and they are very satisfied with the progress that has been made.

Q178 Mr Jenkins: As I said, that is the answer you would give me - I knew that would be the answer.

Mr Ainsworth: So why did you ask!

Q179 Mr Jenkins: The question I asked you is: I believe the situation has improved, but how do you, as a department, evaluate the performance of raising these orders and delivering them, and how has it improved over time? That is all I am asking. If there has been an improvement you must be able to say with confidence it has delivered - prove it in figures. That is what I am asking, so I would be very grateful for a note.

Mr Ainsworth: You would like some figures?

Mr Jenkins: Yes. The next one is helicopter availability.

Q180 Chairman: Before you move on to helicopters, Minister, when we were in Basra a couple of weeks ago we were told that the senior officers there were very satisfied indeed with the equipment that they had had.

Mr Ainsworth: I got exactly the same.

Mr Jenkins: Did you want to congratulate the ----

Chairman: I just wanted to repeat what we had been told.

Q181 Mr Jenkins: I made no assertion as to any different! Proof of the helicopter availability. We get constant comments about the fact that we have a shortage of helicopter availability, which is denied by the Department. How does the Department evaluate the helicopter availability we have got? It must be a concern to them that we are using up our equipment at a far faster rate than was envisaged when we first purchased them. There must be other purchases in the pipeline. How many helicopters do we need to replace the ones we have burned out now? What is available? Can you do us an assessment of the availability on demand rather than the availability monitored by the amount of crews we have got, by the amount of helicopters we have got, or by the maintenance regime it has to undertake? What is the gap between those three and the actual demand required by our services?

Mr Ainsworth: The first thing to say is that forces out in operating areas have the first call on resources. Of the helicopters we have got, obviously, we want the maximum number out there, in the field, supporting our troops. However, that does lead to pressures elsewhere and does mean: do we have sufficient kit at home to maintain adequate training programmes to bring on crews, and the rest of it? So it is not as simple as: do the troops in Iraq have enough helicopters? There are all kinds of other pressures. If you want us to do a note on that then we will give you a note. Pressures do arise in other areas, not necessarily in the operating ----

Q182 Mr Jenkins: I did not think it was simple; I think it is very, very complex and very difficult.

Mr Ainsworth: I thought you said you were asking simple questions!

Q183 Mr Jenkins: I will tell you one thing: never listen to a politician. If you tell me that we are holding helicopters back for training in this country and denying our frontline troops the use of helicopters, then that would be a most serious - I do not think you meant that at all.

Mr Ainsworth: That is not what I am telling you at all; I am saying that the pressures on the helicopter fleet tend to come out in areas other than the operating area. That is our first priority, and meeting their needs is the first priority. That means that we wind up with problems elsewhere - which should not be denied. On an ongoing basis, the ability to continue to train and to bring people on is important.

Mr Jenkins: Of course, and if you can give us a note on that we would be very grateful.

Q184 Chairman: Minister, these are questions to which I do not expect you to have an answer because I did not give you any prior warning of them. Last year we travelled in Warriors into Basra Palace and the heat in those Warriors was quite phenomenal. We were told last year that the medical personnel out there were extremely concerned that there would be a heat related fatality that was nothing to do with enemy action. This year we met the helicopter crews that manned the casualty evacuations. They told us that they had had a lot of work to do relating to heat casualties. I wonder whether there is some trade-off between the amount of money that one could spend on putting some air conditioning into some of the vehicles that we are providing compared with the cost of evacuating people through heat related casualties, quite apart from the fact that the better conditions we put our Armed Forces into the better management of people there would be and the fairer it would be to the people who are putting their lives on the line on a daily basis. I wonder if you could do us something, when you answer the questions from Brian Jenkins, about that.

Mr Ainsworth: Okay.

Chairman: I do not know whether there are any further questions. There will be some questions that we want to ask you in writing about detainees, because there are some very important issues we want to pursue on that. No further questions. Then the session is over. Many thanks.