, basra development. i think in iraq, they have a strong sense that they can be a very strong country, economically. but, obviously, it required as you have rightly said, the push of some of our investors, and, particularly, michael waring to get it moving forward so we had to hold investment conferences, i held two meetings at downing street with potential investors, and i met business leaders, as i said to sir martin gilbert in basra to talk about how they could move it forward. >> and we were doing this, at a time when our civilian staff that had to be evacuated from the city, had -- out to the airport, how much did our ability to promote economic initiatives, how much was it impeded by the fact that the form office and the dfid staff were actually holed up in the cob at the airport? >> well, i think over time, this was the right strategy, of course, that -- >> we had to do it for the reasons of austerity -- >> but over time it was the right strategy, we let the iraqis have more control and i think the

basra was about 2 million people. the other provinces were a group of people and basra became the center both our problems and what we were eventually able to achieve successfully i think in putting basra into position where it could govern it out. >> you remember when you -- when the decision was taken we would take on this role? 's >> there were. the first was when the military decision was that instead of our troops go in and in the north, troops were going in the south. and that was a decision taken on military advice and that was a change that was made to our plans, that the second decision without we would organize iraq after the military success. i can't recall exactly when we were given the responsibility for basra, but i know that for us it'd been involved economic and social and political measures. >> there were meetings discussed in earlier evidence held in march, prime minister, development secretary, i can't recall offhand whether you were there or not about taking charge of basra and what would be requir

what is it to you if you live in basra?in this election there are the multi member constituencies within the government's so the political parties and coalitions that are forming are trying to find powerful attractive local candidates to run. and then they are creating these collisions. so the impact especially in places like manila province with a party is particularly strong is they are going to win overwhelmingly i think in the province and they are a constituent member of the rocky a coalition. but what happens after they are elected if they have a larger number of seats from the province and they go to baghdad, those seats don't necessarily have to stay within that particular coalition. you can move them around. and what about in this house? where from the polls i've seen 30% of the people are still undecided. who are they voting for? why at this point in pulverize iraq with 30% of people be undecided? i think these are the cause i supporters of muqtada al-sadr. it's possible anyway. and if these people vote and they v

and when we left basra some months ago, we had armed forces and police at a high level. we had local government elections with a very big number of candidates standing, and we were beginning to see signs and data which is a very potentially, potentially very prosperous area. it was starting to develop. look at afghanistan. so we are no longer in iraq. our armed forces are in one major theater, and that is afghanistan. our strategic defense review will be re-examined in the next parliament. we added a chapter a few years ago because of the threat of international terrorism, but we have our armed forces in afghanistan. i think our armed forces into our something a little over 175,000. we of nine and now thousand in afghanistan. and we are funding them to do the operations of the responsible for in the helmand province. now as we have a future strategic defense review, of course we will have to assess that there is this new threat that was not really the central thread of 1997. and that is the ability of broken nonstate actors who are terrorists to cause very big problems.

we do it across the country from basra to mosul from anbar to die al a province. they continue to work and do partnered operations across iraq. we are outside of the cities now. iraqis control all security inside of the cities. we're attempting to continue to build their capacity so it's still very busy. we will start to draw down here over the next several months and when we get down to 50,000, we'll have a change of mission. we'll end combat operations. we'll move to a more training and advise mission. we'll still conduct some partnered counterterrorism operations as we move forward. >> lehrer: what kind of combat operations are u.s. troops involved in now? >> in reality, jim, very few. i would argue we're more into stability operations now. we support iraqi operations, but almost every operation is ... iraqis are involved in. every operation is led by iraqis. we provide support. we advise them during operations. i would argue in reality we really have moved very close to where we think we'll be on the first of september already. >> lehrer: general, you've been

and when you go to iraq, kristin gore frankly baghdad or i'm sorry, basra najif, most of the more investment turkish come in the south much of the investment is iranian. when you go to baghdad would always strikes me when i go to baghdad is you don't see any cranes on top of the buildings, you don't see any signs that debt is getting buildup or indeed it is changed much in the last several years but in this way accountability of politicians matter. people are talking about who was able to bring development to najif at the converse to that is who took too much money off the top the disenfranchised or stole money from ordinary civilians. in baghdad will be interesting to see whether any discussion is sparked by the open list about why so little is happened here in terms of development. one of the metrics i'm going to be carried is about is how many people actually return to parliament. when i talk to folks of bad debt and for cities on set within four years the expect 50% of the faces in parliament now to remain in parliament. the would be to reduce what happens with that before we move forwar

contrary, the big sunni parties won't do particularly well in basra or eastern bag dad. the big worry i have about this election is not what happens today or tomorrow. it's what happens over the next three months. remember those purple finger elections back at the end of 2005? everybody thought this is great. i was writing in my book fiasco, the first book on the iraq war, people would say it's over. why are you writing a book called fiasco? as it happened, those purple finger elections are one of the major causes of the civil war in iraq in 2006. and so the next several months are very nervous period for iraq and for the united states. you'll have all the same ingredients that led to the civil war of 2006 but you're not going to have the americans around to stop it this time. so there's a huge burden on the iraqi leadership to try to put together a government here that does not spark another civil war. >> we'll put the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guests. we're talking about the iraq elections. separate line for republicans and democrats and indepen

eventually the decision was to move into another part of iraq and we became responsible for the basra area. that was not the original plan and that changed over a period of time. i was involved in discussions about making sure that sufficient resources were available to do that and i've always said the resources would be available but i would say the most general discussions that we had were generally the discussions were about the diplomatic effort but in different committees obviously, the prime minister was talking to the foreign secretary and the defense secretary about the options. i was not involved in these discussions but i was aware of the discussions because of the role the treasury had to play. >> you received, i know all in written briefings about the polls and planning. what issues did the officials raise with you? >> first of all, the cost and we looked at different estimates of what intervention would cost depending on the options that were decided on and my view was that it had to be the best military option and we had to support the military decision that was made an

i think it's important to look at president maliki's basra moment.sion was made as i understand -- and i'm not an iraq expert but as i understand largely without any u.s. knowledge ahead of the decision, that president maliki sent a significant force into basra. that indicated in many ways that you had a leader that was willing to craple with the hardest part of the problem and instill a certain amount of legitimacy among the iraqi people about their particular president. i think in many ways we're still awaiting a hamid karzai moment. we've not yet seen it and it might be a good inflection point should one occur. secondly and directly related to the surge it's not so much the number of troops that were sent but the decision taken by president bush. set aside the argument about whether or not going into iraq was the right decision or not. the fact was we were there. and against considerable opinion within the professional ranks of both our diplomats and our military, president bush took the hard decision to actually go the route of the surge. and tha

and when we left basra we have local government elections with the significant numbers of candidates,ere beginning to see signs that that potentially very prosperous area was starting to develop an economy. now look afghanistan. we are no longer in iraq. our armed forces are in one major theater, afghanistan. our strategic defense review will be reexamined in the next parliament. we added a chapter a few years ago because of the threat of international terrorism. but we have our armed forces in afghanistan, a total of 175,000, and we're finding them to the operation that they are responsible for in the helmand province. as we have a future strategic defense review, we will have to assess this new threat that is not really the central threat of 1997, and that is the ability of rogue non-state actors who are terrorists to cause very big problems. and we have wrote or aggressive states to cause problems with the rest of the world. and we will have to cooperate -- incorporate that into our defense review. but the operation in afghanistan in particular, our troops are funded for the commit

and the very unsuccessful military mission we had in southern iraq around basra, which of course, was over by the u.s. and the iraqis -- all of that wahas left a bad taste. and win people see tony blair all run the world having stood down as prime minister and because the british are seen as more tightfisted than other nations, people resent that he is now a multi millionaire. host: can you explain the relationship between gordon brown and tony blair? guest: i think it was really a religion but mutual the put- dependents. tony blair came into politics with -- mutual dependence. attorney blair came into politics with less experience. -- tony blair came into politics with less experience. it were both reformers. they wanted to move toward a centrist policies. and for many years there was an assumption amongst them that the boss in the group, the leader in the group was gordon brown. but at the time that the vacancy came open to lead the labor party following the death of john smith -- host: a seven vacancy -- a seven vacancy. guest: a sudden vacancy. tony blair had successfully led a ca

eventually the decision was to move into another part of iraq and we became responsible for the basra. that was not the original plan and that changed over a period of time. i was involved in discussions about making sure that sufficient resources were available to do that and i've always said the resources would be available but i would say the most general discussions that we had were generally the discussions were about the diplomatic effort but in different committees obviously, the prime minister was talking to the foreign secretary and the defense secretary about the options. i was not involved in these discussions but i was aware of the discussions because of the role the treasury had to play. >> you received, i know all in written briefings about the polls and planning. what issues did the officials raise with you? >> first of all, the cost and we looked at different estimates of what intervention would cost depending on the options that were decided on and my view was that it had to be the best military option and we had to support the military decision that was made an not r

so you elect somebody on the list, the person may live in baghdad what is it to you if you live in basra? in this there are multi member constituencies within the governor rents so the political parties and coalitions forming are trying to find powerful attractive local candidates to run than they are creating these collisions. so the impact especially in places like nineveh province where the party is strong is that they're going to win overwhelmingly. and they are a constituent member of the iraq coalition. but what happens after they are elected if they have a large number of seats from the nineveh province and they go to baghdad those seats don't necessarily have to stay within that particular question. you can move them around and what about in the south where from the polls i've seen 30% of the people are still undecided. who are they voting for? why at this point in polarized iraq with 30% of people and decided i think it's because these are the supporters of muqtada al-sadr air. it's possible any way and if these people vote and they vote for muqtada also all solder it's difficul

now most recently more than 1,000 members of the red bulls were deployed to basra, iraq, where they took command of 14,000 troops in nine of 18 of iraq's provinces. after serving long hours and giving up days and years of their lives the red sbrulls finally returned home to minnesota -- bulls have finally returned home to minnesota and it was an occasion. these heroes took part in the minnesota national guards' return to the yellow ribbon re-interrogation program which helps soldiers ease back into every day life and to give thanks for their extended service, in january, 2010, -- 2010, the post -- 2007, the p.d. -- pdmra was implemented to offer extra pay to those who served extended time overseas during deployments in iraq and afghanistan. but despite this promise more than 23,000 troops did not receive the benefits they were promised due to the bureaucracy and the red tape within the department of defense. troops that were owed thousands of dollars, they didn't see a dime. this was entirely unacceptable. this was the type of delay, whatever the success, was certainly outrageous. and th