Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
MARGARET BECKETT
MP, RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, AIR CHIEF
MARSHAL SIR
JOCK STIRRUP
GCB AND MR
NIGEL CASEY
11 JANUARY 2007
Q1 Chairman: It is 3.30 and to this most
unusual joint meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the
Defence Committee, may I welcome our witnesses to talk about a
crucial matter—the Foreign Secretary, Secretary of State,
CDS and Mr Casey—thank you very much for coming. I cannot
remember now whether the initiative to have both the Foreign Secretary
and Secretary of State for Defence came from us or came from you
but I think it is nevertheless a welcome move on a matter which
does span at least the responsibilities of your two Departments
and of our two Committees. I wonder whether I could begin by starting
perhaps with you, Foreign Secretary, and if you Secretary of State
would like to add anything you would be welcome to do so, to ask
what the implications are for the United Kingdom of the changes
in the United States' policy that were either announced or implied
by the President in his speech last night?
Margaret Beckett: I think my own
would be that the implications are somewhat limited in that obviously
what is being proposed by the United States and the Iraqi Government
together is an initiative in and around particularly Baghdad to
deal with the security situation there. Where we are engaged in
the South, as you know, we are already involved in various activities
to deal with and to try to improve the security situation and
indeed the rest of the situation there. So I think obviously it
is an issue that people will look at, but I would say that it
is a change in direction, as the President said, for the United
States. It does not necessarily imply a change of direction for
us.
Q2 Chairman: Secretary of State,
would you like to add anything to that?
Des Browne: Thank you very much.
Other than at the outset to agree with the Foreign Secretary that
the United States' plans are entirely consistent with our objectives
and activities in MND (SE). I think the media today already has
been full of an analysis of the differences between Baghdad where,
as the President said yesterday, 80% of the violence in Iraq occurs
within a 30-mile radius of that city, and the circumstances that
we face in MND (SE). Members of both Committees and all honourable
Members will know that we have been going through a process in
MND (SE) which has seen already provincial Iraqi control of two
of the four provinces there. Both the Foreign Secretary and I
have expressed on many occasions in the House and otherwise our
view of the progress that has been made towards provincial Iraqi
control in Maysan, and as we will no doubt go into (but I will
not at this stage) we have been in Basra Province and in Basra
City in particular conducting a very particular operation in order
to create the space for the Iraqis to take the lead not just militarily
but in all other aspects of control of that city. Probably we
are not now going to explain the differences that everybody knows,
but we may go into that later on, in terms of the analysis of
the security situation, so to that extent as the Secretary of
State for Defence, in terms of our military strategy, the decisions
that the President has made and announced overnight are entirely
consistent with our position.
Chairman: Okay, thank you.
Q3 Mr Horam: I understand what you
say, Secretary of State, when you say that the implications for
the UK of President Bush's initiative were rather limited, except
that insofar as we support this—and I presume from what
you have said that we do—it will continue to have an effect
on the UK overall in the Middle East in terms of our reputation
and our ability to influence events in a way that our running
support for President Bush over the last few years has had an
effect on our reputation.
Margaret Beckett: I think one
of the things that is really important to keep in mind throughout
the conversation about this is the degree to which this is a set
of proposals and a strategy that seems to have been worked out
and to have the consent and the support of the Government of Iraq
and so to that extent if that is understood, which I believe it
should be, and indeed I think it is up to us partly to try and
make sure that it is understood that that is the case, to the
extent that there is an issue that you have referred to and identified
there, it might actually somewhat improve things because it is
quite clear that there has been extensive discussion and that
this is an Iraqi Government and US Government strategy.
Q4 Mr Horam: Is that not a rather
none too subtle attempt to shift the blame for failure to Iraq?
Margaret Beckett: No, not at all
because I am actually not conceding that there is blame to be
shifted. I would simply say to you that the Prime Minister of
Iraq is on record today as saying that this is a strategy that
has been extensively discussed, and as it happens our Ambassador
went to see him this morning and he made clear that he is extremely
supportive of the plans and proposals, so it is not a matter of
passing any buck or any blame or whatever, it is a matter of recognising
that Prime Minister al-Maliki has made plain that these issues
have been extensively discussed with him and he hopes that this
will work and is supportive of the plans to do so.
Q5 Mr Horam: Certainly, but he has
done that as a result of the pressure put on him by the American
President and his supporters, quite clearly, that there is a time
link to American involvement, that the American public will get
tired and impatient about all this and therefore he had better
do something. In effect, if it fails, the Americans and you are
able to say, "We did our best but the Iraqis let us down,
they did not do it."
Margaret Beckett: I think that
assumes that the Iraqi Government itself is not becoming increasingly
anxious to assume greater responsibility, and that would be a
mistaken assumption.
Q6 Mr Horam: Nonetheless, if they
are hog-tied—
Margaret Beckett: It has been
increasingly clear that the Iraqis want to have a transfer of
responsibility, that they are pushing faster and greater transfer
of responsibility to themselves. It is not something that is being
driven and forced on them by us or anybody else.
Des Browne: If I may remind the
Committee that when President Bush met Prime Minister al-Maliki
in Amman (and I am sorry but off the top of my head I cannot remember
exactly when that was but it was very recently) the reports of
that conversation, which we no doubt have all read, suggested
that Prime Minister al-Maliki was urging upon President Bush an
increase in the pace of the process of handover. Can I say to
you from my own experience in meeting al-Maliki and his ministers
that there is a growing desire among them for increased responsibility.
The question of course that we have to answer—and sometimes
we have to temper their urgency by reminding them of their capability
and capacity—is at the end of the day everybody who is involved
in the evolution and the development of this strategy and everybody
who comments on it will say the same thing, and that is that the
problems that Iraq has will not be resolved by military means
alone—
Q7 Mr Horam: Is that not why they—
Des Browne: Just let me finish
this sentence and then I will be happy to take the supplementary.
So in fact building Iraqi capacity, Iraqis taking responsibility,
allowing the politics to work, encouraging them to take responsibility
for their own decisions and through the process of increasingly
taking responsibility for security accepting that responsibility
is all part of the process.
Q8 Mr Horam: But there is a difference
of opinion here, is there not, between Prime Minister al-Maliki
and President Bush in that he said in what you have just quoted
that he did not want more troops but President Bush is now wishing
on him 21,500 more troops.
Des Browne: I know that I have
read today and I think the Foreign Secretary has already made
reference to that reports of his contributions to the discussions
and he has said directly to us and our representatives in Baghdad
that he is foursquare behind this development and that he welcomes
it.
Q9 Mr Keetch: Just to follow this
line, can we be absolutely clear this is not the Iraqi Government
plan and that this is the United States Government plan that is
being supported by the Iraqi Government? Some commentators in
the United States are saying that this is what the Iraqis have
asked for. Is this what the Iraqis have asked for or is this an
American-led plan, albeit supported by the Iraqi Government?
Margaret Beckett: I am being reminded
that on Saturday, Prime Minister al-Maliki actually referred to
the Baghdad Security Plan and talked about it in terms of the
plans in which the Iraqi Government were involved.
Q10 Mr Keetch: I just want to see
who has ownership. If this is an absolute glorious success, is
it the glorious success of the President of the United States?
I hope it is a glorious success for everybody, but I just want
to know the ownership of where this comes from. Is it a US plan
that has been supported by the Iraqi Government or is it an Iraqi
Government plan that has been taken on by the Americans?
Margaret Beckett: One thing that
is quite clear is that it is not our plan.
Q11 Mr Keetch: So you will not be
claiming success.
Mr Casey: President Bush in his
statement last night talks explicitly about the Iraqi Government
in the lead with American support.
Q12 Mr Keetch: So if this is a glorious
success the great fame for this lies with the Iraqis and not with
the President of the United States and certainly not with the
British Foreign Secretary?
Margaret Beckett: If it is a glorious
success you will not be able to get in the door for people who
are claiming credit for it.
Q13 Mr Keetch: Can I move back to
the implications for the British sector because you seem to be
suggesting, Foreign Secretary, that the implications will be somewhat
limited. There has been a lot of concentration on the fact that
there are 21,500 troops in Baghdad and 4,000 for Ambar, but what
the President also said last night is that he will be going after
Syrian and Iranian influence on the insurgents and the terrorists.
If he seeks to do that, given that our province and the area we
look after is bordering Iran and given the reported action today
of US forces going into an Iranian consul building of some kind
to make arrests, surely that will have an effect on what is happening
in the province we are looking after because certainly when we
were in Iraq earlier this year we were told quite clearly by British
commanders on the ground that they believed there were Iranian
influences to bear in and around Basra. Any attempt to reduce
that Iranian influence, welcome as it might be, may well have
an effect in our province.
Margaret Beckett: The implication
of your question seems to be, if I may say so, that it would be
a bad thing, the influence of Iranian and Syrian on events—
Q14 Mr Keetch: I would welcome it.
I am simply disputing your view that it will have somewhat limited
effect in and around Basra. If you are going to stop the Iranian
insurgents, which is a very good thing to do, it will have a very
big effect in Basra.
Margaret Beckett: I understood
Mr Arbuthnot to be asking about whether the report was likely
to drive a change in UK Government policy and I am saying no.
You are asking now something different. You are asking about what
the effect may be and all I can simply say to you is that there
is pretty clear evidence on the part both of Iran and of Syria
that they have had and are having a negative influence in those
parts of Iraq where we are present and where we are trying to
work with the Iraqis to bring about the kind of improvements that
we seek, and so if that influence is diminished that will only
be a good thing, a point made by many commentators.
Chairman: We will come back to the issue
of the approach of the United States and the United Kingdom to
Syria and Iran in a few minutes' time. I do not want to pursue
that line just yet.
Q15 Mr Keetch: Just to clarify the
situation, it seems to me that what you are saying, Foreign Secretary,
is that what President Bush has announced last night will have
a somewhat limited effected on the British posture in and around
Basra. If that is the case, can we assume therefore that we have
made no contingencies for any increases in violence that might
be effected from terrorists being displaced from Baghdad, coming
down to the South for example?
Margaret Beckett: No you cannot.
Des Browne: I make two points,
firstly, the way in which you asked the question first was a variation
on the theme of the way in which you asked the question the second
time, which was that if you press the balloon here it may swell
there.
Q16 Mr Keetch: Yes.
Des Browne: And that indeed to
some degree is being represented over the last 24 hours as if
somebody has discovered this and that the idea that military effect
in one part of Iraq may produce an effect otherwise was not already
in the thinking of those who are responsible for our strategy
and indeed the tactics that underlie the strategy. That is fundamentally
not true. Apart from anything else, Mr Keetch, the provinces that
we have had responsibility for in MND (SE) have always been where
they presently are and those that are on the border of Iran have
always been on the border of Iran and we have had to live and
deal with that in military terms. Indeed, you will recollect that
one of the things that we did in Maysan recently, only months
ago, was that we repostured our troops from a fixed position in
Maysan onto the border of Maysan in order to deal exactly with
that. Without going into operational security issues, you can
take it from me that every single day our commanders in Basra
Province and in Basra City are aware of the geography of what
they have responsibility for and take that into account in the
way in which they deploy their troops. Finally, in relation to
the other point that is if you disturb the Shia in the Shia Sadr
City in Baghdad will the Shia in the Shia flats in Basra rise
up in arms? We are well aware of that possibility and that is
why we continually assess the risk and we continually assess how
we deploy our forces. All of these things are all part of the
contingencies that are taken into account in terms of the way
in which we plan. Because the President has said last night that
they in Baghdad are now going to set about, with the Iraqis and
with the Iraqi Government, dealing with their support politically,
with certain militia which come out of the Shia, that is what
we had hoped would be done some time and is all part of our contingency
planning. Finally, can I just say—and this is at the heart
of the question—it is wrong to assume, and I will ask the
CDS to expand on this perhaps very specifically, that if we are
able for example to reduce the number of troops that we have in
MND (SE), that that will reduce our capacity to be able to create
security.
Q17 Mr Keetch: Just a very last question
so you can see, Secretary of State for Defence, that what the
President has announced last night may have a direct effect—hopefully
for the good, possibly for the bad—on the security situation
for our forces in MND (SE)?
Des Browne: We have always been
aware that despite the fact that Basra and Baghdad are very different
to each other in terms of what is happening at the minute, particularly
in the nature of the violence and what needs to be dealt with
in terms of security, that they are both part of the same country,
so we have always been aware that Basra was part of the same country
that Baghdad was the capital of and that it was sitting on the
Iranian border.
Mr Keetch: Thank you.
Q18 Mr Hancock: Can I just ask the
Foreign Secretary, I was curious about your response about the
ownership of the plan being very much an Iraqi plan which the
Americans had agreed to. If that was the case the Iraqis have
had the forces available to them to co-operate with the Americans
to deal with much of the militia problems that have emanated out
of Baghdad but they have failed miserably to participate in that.
What gives you confidence now that this plan is going to effectively
change that? 17,000 more Americans in Baghdad—is that really
going to make that much difference to encourage the Iraqis themselves
to take ownership of the issue?
Margaret Beckett: I think that
you are perhaps slightly over-egging the remarks that I made.
I said that this was a plan which the Iraqi Government and the
American Government had worked on together and that is plainly
the case. That is what both the Iraqi Government and the American
Government say. So that is the first point I would make. Secondly,
I assume that one of the reasons that lies behind the fact that
they have had these extensive discussions and are working on them
together is because of their joint recognition of something which
I think all of us recognise, which is that the attempts to have
a successful security plan in Baghdad hitherto have not worked.
President Bush identified in his remarks, as I am sure you will
have seen, that this was because although the ground was cleared
it was not then secured, and I assume that the conclusion to which
they have come is that there is a change required and that this
is a change that they hope and believe will help them to secure
the ground in Baghdad in future.
Q19 Mr Hancock: Can I then ask a
question, as the two leading players from the UK, about what involvement
you have had over the last three weeks with the American Administration
about the way in which this plan was brought into shape? What
consultations have you had, for example, with your opposite numbers
in the State Department and with the Secretary of State for Defense
in the Pentagon about the way in which this plan evolved, was
going to be implemented and what co-operation was sought from
the British Government as part of the coalition because, after
all, we are part of a coalition and one suspects that the coalition
will still have to pull together?
Margaret Beckett: Of course, the
coalition will still have to pull together. I will ask Des to
answer for his own consultations with Secretary Gates in a moment
but we have on-going general discussions about the position in
Iraq about in fact the things we were referring to earlier, the
increasing eagerness of the Iraqi Government to play a greater
role. I regard this as wholly healthy, by the way, and what one
would wish to see in what is, after all, a relatively new government,
accustoming itself for the first time to operating in a democracy.
They have only been in power, after all, for something like seven
months. However, it is becoming increasingly clear not only that
they have views about what will be effective in dealing with some
of these issues but they want their views to be more and more
to the fore and they want in consequence also to have a greater
share of the responsibility so those kind of general discussions
have certainly been taking place and I would anticipate that discussions
of that kind about an evolving situation will continue in the
normal and natural way.
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