Leaving Iraq

Failing to present himself before the House of Commons to be questioned on his regime's failures and incompetence yet again, the Prime Minister has flown away to Iraq to do the Foreign Secretary's job instead of his own duty.

The four thousand troops at Basra airport will have no more status than any other group of heavily armed men illegally in a foreign country, after 31 December. The agreements signed between the Iraqi government and the occupying US troops have been negotiated, debated and passed in the Iraq Parliament but do not apply to the United Kingdom. At first they were told to leave along with all the other remnant 'coalition of the willing' by the end of the year. In a desperate face-saving operation cobbled together by the Prime Minister's special adviser on foreign relations - what is the Foreign Office for, never mind the Foreign Secretary? - another of those 'I have here a piece of paper' waving moments was engineered which says US troops will take over any duties being carried out from the Basra airport base by May and the English really must be gone by July at latest.

Of all the terrible things brought down upon the United Kingdom by New Labour, this illegal war has been the worst. And it ends with their Leader hiding from his own Parliament, telling lies in the capital of a wronged and damaged country to our wronged and damaged forces.

It is to be hoped that the Iraq Parliament will pass the legislation put before them today to agree the time to pack, or there will have to be a mad scuttle even to get the people out; but, then, the equipment was always poor and in inadequate supply so it doesn't matter if it's just abandoned.

UPDATE

The Iraqi Parliament has defeated the second reading of the bill that would have permitted 4,000 British troops and tens of troops from Australia, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania, to remain in Iraq past 31 December 2008.

Referred to as 'other entities' during the negotiations between the Iraq government and the United States government to establish a Status of Forces Agreement that would come into force when the United Nations legal mandate expired on the last day of 2008, it was assumed that the UK contingent would be added in an end clause to be covered on the terms agreed for the United States' forces. The suspicion that part of the bargaining to get the US Status of Forces Agreement through Parliament at all was that no such cover should be extended to the other entities grows. It was only after the Agreement had been signed and then ratified by the Iraq Parliament at the beginning of December that the reality of the situation dawned on New Labour. United Kingdom forces have no United Nations sanctioned status in Iraq except that expiring on 31 December.
After his frantic flight to Iraq on Wednesday to try for a solution that excluded the democratic assent of the Iraq Parliament. Brown said:

'On 1 January 2009, with the expiry of United Nations resolution 1790, Iraq will regain its full sovereignty. Yesterday in Baghdad, I told Prime Minister Maliki, and he agreed, [just listen to the language, 'I told..' , what manner of speech is that? ed.] that British forces in Iraq should have time to finish the missions that I have just outlined. In the past three weeks, concluding with our talks yesterday, we have made substantial progress with the Government of Iraq. We have defined: first, the tasks that need to completed; secondly, the authorisations needed to complete them; and thirdly, a way to provide a firm legal basis for our forces. At all times, we have worked closely with President Bush and the Americans, and our other coalition partners. [But did they work closely with us? ed.]

On 16 December, the Iraqi Council of Ministers agreed to submit to the Council of Representatives a short draft law to give the presence of UK forces a legal basis after 1 January. The law is now going through the Iraqi Council of Representatives; it had its first reading yesterday and is scheduled to have its second reading on 20 December. We expect the process to be complete before UN resolution 1790 expires. In the event of the process not being complete, the Iraqis have told us that Coalition Provisional Authority order 17, which confers protection on coalition troops, will remain in place. Our troops will therefore have the legal basis that they need for the future. '(Hansard)

Order 17, signed by Paul Bremer in June 2004, is intended to cover the operations of contract forces such as Blackwater, and foreign missions, advisers, etc. It does cover multinational force troops as well but confers none of the legitimacy of the United Nations resolutions. These are very different grounds for our troops to be present in a sovereign country.