Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Iraq and Home Office
Iraq
Asked if it was a risk to say this was a new beginning for Iraq given that the violence was likely to continue and put to him that we had had "new beginnings" before, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that first and foremost it was not us who was saying this was a new beginning, it was the representatives of the 12,191,000 Iraqis who had elected them. The reason it was a new beginning was that for the first time the Iraqis had a truly representative, democratically elected government which, as the Prime Minister said, was writing the next chapter in the history of Iraq. Furthermore, as the Prime Minister set out, if people were worried that their section of the community might be excluded, they could now lay those concerns to rest. Everybody was now represented on the Government. So people had a choice, they could join the politics, which was working, or they could continue with the violence. But as the Iraqi Prime Minister has made very clear, both publicly and privately, the Iraqi Government with the increasing ability of its forces would stamp hard on those who wished to continue with violence. So it was new era.
Asked if the Prime Minister would discuss the violence in the South of Iraq with his Iraqi counterpart, the PMOS said that in terms of Basra and the south it was naturally part of the discussions. Prime Minister al-Maliki confirmed that a high level Iraqi delegation would be going to Basra to have talks there. This had been outlined in the joint statement we had issued this morning. Asked who the delegation would be talking to, the PMOS said that they would be talking to the community at large in Basra and they would be using their contacts, within that community at large, to talk to who they needed to talk to.
Asked to comment on reports that British troops were expected to be out of Iraq by 2010, the PMOS said that the key word that Prime Minister al-Maliki used in the meeting was that the main criterian was the "readiness" of the Iraq troops. As he had said in the press conference, the Iraqi government wanted to begin the process of provinces coming under Iraqi control in June. They wanted to implement that as quickly as possible. However that depended on two factors. First was the overall level of security and second was the readiness of the Iraqi forces and we would work with them to help that be achieved.
Asked if there might be confusion between talking about Iraqi-isation and the troops not being ready at the same time, the PMOS said that there was a difference between Iraqi troops taking over in provinces which were largely peaceful already, which of 18 provinces, 14 were, and taking over completely. This was not something which changed over-night. It was a progression and a progression dependent on the readiness of the Iraqi forces. As the communiqué said, the words we actually used were "much" rather than "most" of Iraq by the end of the year to be under control of the Iraqi forces. That was the ambition, but it would depend on circumstances on the ground.
Asked about the direction of "Iraqi-isation" and whether there were differing opinions about what it meant, the PMOS said that both Governments new where we were in terms of the process and the strategy. We had set out the process of Iraqi-isation two years ago. He had briefed it in April 2004 and got 3 lines in the Observer, he had tried again on the Monday and got slightly more coverage at that time. This was a strategy we laid down two years ago. This was a strategy we had been fulfilling since then. Iraqi-isation in terms of politics and enabling democratic elections in Iraq, which 12, 191,000 Iraqs participated in. We had achieved that and now equally we were addressing the security side as well. That was the strategy, so in terms of support for the Iraqi Government, it was fulfilling that strategy.
Asked what contact had taken place between the Prime Minister and the Bush administration and what the next step for Iraq was, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister spoke to President Bush on a regular basis on Iraq and a number of other issues and they were well aware of each others mind. The important point was that in terms of the Iraqi Government, it had three priorities. Firstly it was a process of national reconciliation, secondly it was a process of economic recovery, repairing the infrastructure getting the economy up and running, and the third priority was the international compact using the international support on issues such as debt but also on issues such as expertise. There were many different ways in which the international community could help apart from of course the security presence which we had in place. Asked about the relationship between the UK and the United States, the PMOS said that there were many facets of the relationship between the UK and the United States and we would be dealing with the issues in the round rather than in a particular meeting.
Home Office
Asked if the Prime Minister was set against the idea of breaking the Home Office up into smaller units, the PMOS said that the situation was precisely as we had set out in the past. We had already moved the criminal justice element to the DCA. There was a natural synergy about having issues such as immigration and policing in the same department. Nobody was pretending that the issues were anything other than complex, as recent events had shown. However we believed that the synergy between the different parts outweighed the problems of having such complex issues in the same department.
Asked if the Prime Minister was considering having two Home Office Cabinet positions instead of just one, the PMOS said that that sounded like a reshuffle question to him. Asked therefore if one man was enough to oversee all the issues of the Home Office, the PMOS said that the key point was that the Home Office got the leadership it needed and John Reid was there pushing the agenda and was very much addressing the issues of the balance of individual and communal human rights, which was very much part of the Prime Minister’s agenda as well. Put to him that the Prime Minister had said that the Home Office was getting the leadership it needed two days before sacking Charles Clarke, the PMOS said that he wasn’t going to go over the reshuffle again we had covered that ground sufficiently by now.
Asked about the Prime Minister’s assessment of how the Home Office was being run, the PMOS said that his assessment was the same as always in that he recognised that the Home Office faced many difficult tasks. The question was whether it was getting the leadership to tackle those tasks. We believed that despite the difficulties, the leadership within the Home Office was dealing with the highly complex issues. If you took something like IND, it had been underinvested in the past, it has had very difficult issues to tackle but it was making progress on those issues. As the Prime Minister had said, if you lifted the stone of certain problems you often discovered other issues beneath it.
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