FCO
Anthony McDermott, MDP
Douglas Brand, CPA [Baghdad]
Stephen White, CPA [Basra]
Subject: Iraq - Recent Developments
Firstly, I am delighted that the Home Office have recognised the workload involved in servicing Iraq issues and have
freed you up and placed you within Peter Storr's International Directorate. Clear Home Office support and guidance is
a key factor in relation to ACPO's decision making and I know you will seek to ensure it is provided.
I now want to address issues raised in recent emails from Stephen White and Douglas Brand. I think I can summarise
their emails as saying 'we need people to deliver a professional service in Iraq and are frustrated at what we perceive
to be delays in providing personnel'. I can fully appreciate their position and feel it is important to clarify the current
position and replace misconceptions with fact and clear policy guidance.
The meeting chaired by Jim Acton on 17/9/03, was clearly aimed at providing support to CPA policing projects as soon
as possible. Indeed, officials indicated that there was strong political will to expedite deployments, notwithstanding the
recruitment and selection timetable previously devised by the FCO [International Policing Unit)
In the context of the training facility for Basra I was prepared to contemplate a first party of UK civil police officers not
requiring firearms training, if they were deployed to and remained in a secure environment. This was an attempt by me
to respond to the apparent political imperative. Though I raised the issue as to whether or not the Danish officers
would be armed and noted Stephen White's view that a professional threat assessment was required - in line with the
I would remind all concerned that the policy that all UK civil police personnel deployed to Iraq would be armed was
confirmed by me to
in an email dated 29/7/03 and indeed was incorporated in to the International
Policing Unit recruitment literature associated with the trawl for 'pool' personnel. If the political imperative requires us
to deploy personnel without firearms training I would require a clear statement from the Home Office that such a move
I remain of the view that we should adhere to our policy of universal PPW carriage, with officers receiving proper pre-
to do so. Equally, firearms training facilities should be made available to support any such directive
The security situation is such that complexes are subject to attack and we must have thought through the contingency
that we will loss civil police officers from hostile acts in Irag This is not a reason to decline to deploy more officers
merely a reminder that policies must be consistent and that senior politicians and chief officers are able to justify the
support arrangements for any officer killed and/or injured. Iraq is a combat zone and civil police officers from the UK
have never before been depioyed to an active combat zone
All bids for UK civil police are processed via the FCO/Home Office/ACPO there are no outstanding requests with
ACPO, nor have any been refused to date
I am very keen to support DB & SW but the firearms requirement obviously delays the date officers can be deployed
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boater or recent developments as known to me will assist all concerned in supporting our colleagues
already in theatre
gards,
Paul Kernaghan
Chief Constable
ACPO International Affairs
sent bv
Management Assistant to the Chief Constable
DDI
Internal:
Fax
E-mail chief.officers@hampshire.pnn.police.uk
or acpo.international.affairs@hampshire.pnn.police.uk
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