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minute have today seen cleared. We have aldo obtaines the names med havel detach f the 24 offices is question and To:
John Sawers
the Iraq,
PS
will chece regatele that this cerains on severale.
Directorate have best this en couse, and / capacially colons le getting seria PSNI offices to wash in then Cramarit SUBJECT: UK POLICE ASSISTANCE TO IRAQ / will confine A Sawer 27/xI
1. The Secretary of State's minute of 27 November to you requested action today on the formal request to the Home Secretary for the deployment of the 24 UK police officers to Basra. I submit a draft letter.
2. There has been no delay to the deployment of these police officers since the plan was agreed in September, and it remains on track for 15 December. The only outstanding bureaucratic hurdle has been approval by ACPO of the security assessment which they requested from us, without which the Home Secretary will not be able to approve the officers' release. Chief Constable Kernaghan has now approved the risk assessment and expressed his support for the deployment on this basis (copy of his email attached).
3. The Secretary of State raised the issue of separate security arrangements for police in relation to other UK civilian staff in Iraq. The police do require their own risk assessments but they have not asked for a different, higher level of security comfort for police officers. But ACPO do insist that all UK police officers deployed to Iraq are armed (and therefore receive pre-posting firearms training) - even when they are to be involved purely in training and not in operational policing.
4. Chief Constable Kernaghan's recommendations on further support for the UK police effort in Iraq (in section 6 of his report) are either already in hand or being taken forward The 24 police officers for Basra have recently completed firearms training and are D scheduled to leave for Iraq on : 3 December to start work on the 15th. A list of names and 440 NRL.
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5. The Secretary of State also asked for a draft letter for the box on 28 November on the wider question of participation by UK forces in overseas police missions (section 8 of the Kemaghan report). This is a lead for UND's International Police Unit to whom we are copying the Secretary of State's minute for action.
(John Buck/
John Buck
Director Iraq
Tel:
Fax:
NO. OF ATTACHMENTS:
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1. I was grateful for your letter of 6 November in which you agreed to release 75 police officers for deployment to the Iraqi Police Training Centre in Jordan. 35 of these officers have already deployed and are preparing to begin the training of the first 500 Iraqi police recruits due to arrive in Amman in the next few days.
2. In your letter you also referred to the intended deployment of police officers to the Regional Training Academy in Basra. I am now writing to formally request the release of a further 24 officers for Basra with a view to beginning training work on 15 December.
In anticipation of this requirement, 24 officers from the pool have recently completed firearms training as required by ACPO for all deployments to Iraq. Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan of ACPO has informed us that he is content with the risk assessment which - has received for the deployment and can therefore support it on this basis.
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