Watch Out

Could it turn the course of the war?

"It is very significant, but we have qualms and the Iraqi government has qualms in mixed areas. In Diyala Province you have a patchwork of Shia, Sunni and Kurd communities not always contiguous.

But it has helped us find a cache in Baghdad that was massive, staggering in size. It was behind a false wall that was so cleverly constructed that it even had cables on it to a switchbox, a fuse box. You cannot normally remove it, but in this case you could and they showed our soldiers where it was. The cache was so big that they could not move it, they had to blow it. This was about two weeks ago. There have been some other finds as well."

What about al-Qaeda?

As they were run out of Euphrates river valley they moved east. There will be big fights in some of these areas. An awful lot of their foreign fighters come through Syria. Eighty or so foreign fighters come through a month. That does not sound like much but every one of those is a potential suicide bomber. We think that 80 to 90 per cent of suicide bombers are foreign fighters.

What about the leadership in Iraq?

"It is still led by foreigners called al-Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL). Our assessment is that this is the central front for al-Qaeda. They have a global war of terror, and Iraq is the central front. Whether you like it or not. That is something that the leaders of the intelligence community in the West and our joint special operations commander agree on and that is why he is here two thirds or three quarters of his time. It is certainly one very important consideration in looking at Iraq."

Who was behind the kidnapping of five Britons in Baghdad last month and what is being done to free them?

"We think that it is the same network that killed our soldiers in Kerbala in an operation back in January. We killed the head of that network less than a week before the operation that detained those British civilians. It was already planned and carried out by his followers. It is a secret cell of Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) not all of which are under control of Moqtadr al-Sadr. That is the assessment at this point."

“They are not rank and file Jaish al-Mahdi. They are trained in Iran, equipped with Iranian (weapons), and advised by Iran. The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant that we thought before. They have since about the summer of 2004 played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming."

"This is lethal stuff, like EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators), mortars, and rockets that are used against Basra Palace (the main British base in Basra). There is also a degree of direction, not in a strategic way but in tactical operations. We captured a wealth of documentation which showed how they account for what they have done, we assume so they can get paid for it, and get additional funding."

Did they deliberately target British citizens?

"We don’t know that they did. We are not sure that they knew they were British. There have been several operations to try to rescue them, we just have not had the right intelligence. There is a very intensive effort ongoing to try to locate and rescue them."

Are they alive?

"We think so. We have had no evidence to the contrary. "

Aside from military operations, how much progress has there been on the political front?

“That is ultimately what gives you hope. You can have operational successes, but what sustains those is progress on the political front. It is reconciliation. The coming together of various parties and sectarian groupings in Iraq. What happened in Anbar was political. What the military action did was capitalised on a political sea-change, where the tribes changed from being on the fence or tacit support for al-Qaeda to active opposition. That is an enormous political change. That enabled military operations to have the support of the population.”

What about political reconciliation at the national level?

“Some of legislation is more important than others. For example the oil law has an enormous far-reaching long-term effect. The idea of enshrining in law the idea that the oil revenues of a country are to be shared equitably with all Iraqis. That is a very significant development. It is huge. It is in the framework. They are very, very close on this. Long term it is hugely important both to the economic revival of Iraq and to keep the country together as one.

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