Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateMike Gapes
Main Page: Mike Gapes (The Independent Group for Change - Ilford South)Department Debates - View all Mike Gapes's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI was in Iraq a couple of weeks ago and had meetings both with Government Ministers and Archbishop Matoka, the archbishop in the diocese where the church was so outrageously attacked a few weeks ago. Ministers are well aware of the need to protect minorities in Iraq. The way in which any state looks after minority communities, particularly the uniquely vulnerable Christian community in Iraq, is taken as an indication of how that country functions. Ministers are well apprised of world-wide concern and have a desire to look after that community.
In an earlier answer, the Foreign Secretary referred to the intention to hand provinces and districts in Afghanistan over to Afghan security forces. Will he confirm that the original plans put forward by General McChrystal have been scrapped and that the position being put forward by the international coalition is based on a hope, a wing, a prayer, and an assumption that the Afghans will come forward in an effective way, but that we have no basis on which we can know that?
It is not just based on a hope, a wing and a prayer; to say that would be unfair to everyone involved. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look at the report that I have laid before the House today, which looks at the Afghan national army’s 28 brigade and corps units and says that seven are now capable of undertaking operations with minimal advice, and then goes through to grade the rest of them. It is also important to bear in mind that, as the report points out, 70% of the violence in Afghanistan is in four of its 34 provinces. That illustrates how dramatically different conditions are in different parts of Afghanistan, which means that transition will be able to take place in some areas years before it can take place in others.