Inquiry hears UK negotiated cease-fire with Iraqi militants in Basra before withdrawing troops

UK agreed cease-fire with Iraqi militants in Basra

LONDON — Britain negotiated a cease-fire with Iraqi militants in Basra three months before British troops pulled out of the city, a senior British official told his country’s Iraq inquiry Wednesday.

Britain has been accused of being too passive in the Basra region and leaving it without a proper post-conflict strategy that left it vulnerable to militias.

But Jon Day, who was the Defense Ministry’s director general of operational policy from 2007 to 2008, told the inquiry that British officials had held talks with the leaders of the Mahdi Army militia in Basra from spring 2007 over how they would operate in the area.

British troops withdrew from central Basra in September that year and based themselves in the outskirts of the city. British troops pulled out of Iraq altogether in April.

The Mahdi Army — a Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and also known under the name Jaish al-Mahdi, or JAM — was heavily involved in the insurgency that erupted after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Day said: “I can confirm that there were contacts between the U.K. and the Sadrists in Basra from the spring of 2007, and that as a result of this continuing dialogue — I think I prefer to use the word ‘understandings’ — were reached with core elements of the Sadrist JAM militias in Basra.”

Day added that this was a British initiative but stressed that it had support from Iraqi security forces in Basra, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and the then-U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

Inquiry panel member Roderic Lyne also asked Day about accusations that the British left militias to police themselves when they withdrew from central Basra.

Day replied that the accusations were unfair.

“The local Iraqi commanders, the government of Iraq, and the coalition all agreed with the approach and the timings,” he said.

The Iraq inquiry is investigating the decisions and mistakes surrounding the war. Deeply unpopular in Britain, the U.S.-led invasion left 179 British soldiers dead, triggered massive public protests, and shadowed the final years of Tony Blair’s premiership.

With widespread opposition at home, British troops never took as aggressive a posture as American soldiers to the north. Shiite militias took control of wide areas of Basra and other parts of the south during Britain’s stewardship.

Gunmen held sway until al-Maliki ordered Iraqi soldiers and police to regain control of Basra. U.S. aircraft and ground troops provided support for the operation.

But Iraqi officers complained bitterly that the British withheld military support. The Ministry of Defense said in the past that it held back to ensure that the operation was seen as Iraqi-led.

Blair is due to give evidence at the inquiry in late January or early February. The inquiry’s chairman John Chilcot said this week that members of the public wishing to attend the day he testifies will have to apply for their place through a ballot.