Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
TUESDAY 24 JULY 2007
RT HON
BOB AINSWORTH
MP, MR DESMOND
BOWEN CMG AND
BRIGADIER CHRIS
HUGHES CBE
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 to do in presenting their view from
Baghdad, is 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.
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