Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 24 JULY 2007
RT HON
BOB AINSWORTH
MP, MR DESMOND
BOWEN CMG AND
BRIGADIER CHRIS
HUGHES CBE
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 range mortars into the COB without coming
out of 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% of the attacks 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 spoils 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.
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