Hague: Iraq strategy needs candid assessment
William Hague has said the government needs to review its current operations and exit strategy in Iraq in light of mounting bloodshed.
The shadow foreign secretary said a “careful reassessment” of the military’s role in reconstructing the troubled Middle Eastern country was needed, because it could be disastrous for Iraqis if further mistakes are made.
Following Mr Hague’s calls, defence secretary Des Browne said the British army was taking steps every day to hand more responsibility back to Iraqi soldiers and police.
“We’re quite far down the process of transferring responsibility to the Iraqis. We’ve handed over two of four provinces,” he told Sky News from an official visit to troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Hague had initially told BBC1’s Sunday AM that the worst course of action the army could take would be to “precipitately pull the rug from under the Iraqi government”, explaining that this could “compound earlier mistakes”.
He added that the government had “to withdraw coalition forces on some reasonable timetable, sooner rather than later, while leaving behind a democratic Iraqi government and stability, security and stability, in most of parts of the country”.
In response, Mr Browne stressed troops would not leave until their “job was done”.
Earlier in the day, a prominent US state department official claimed that the White House’s policy in Iraq has displayed both “arrogance and stupidity”.
Alberto Fernandez told al-Jazeera Arabic news channel that the international community was “witnessing failure in Iraq”, although he said this was not solely down to the US.
“That’s not the failure of the US alone, but it is a disaster for the region,” the director of public diplomacy in the state department’s bureau of near eastern affairs told the channel, speaking in Arabic.
“We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism, because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the US in Iraq,” he added.
Mr Fernandez said the US was prepared to hold talks with any sectarian groups based in Iraq, the only exception being al-Qaida itself.
“We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the hell and the killings in Iraq are linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation,” he said. “The Iraqi government is convinced of this.”
