Richard Drax
Main Page: Richard Drax (Conservative - South Dorset)Department Debates - View all Richard Drax's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Michael Fallon
Yes I can because it is not my figure or that of the Prime Minister: it is an assessment produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee, independently of Ministers. I say gently that if the right hon. Gentleman does not think that there are that many freedom fighters in Syria, how does he think that the civil war has lasted for five years, given that the Syrian army is more than 200,000 strong? People have been fighting the Assad regime.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a significant assault by ground forces, preferably local troops, is the only way to deal with Daesh in the longer term?
Michael Fallon
Yes. In the end, Daesh will only be prised out of cities such as Mosul in Iraq or Raqqa in Syria by local forces. We have already seen some success in the recovery of Baiji and Ramadi in Iraq, and I hope eventually we will see such success in other cities along the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the fullness of time I hope we will see similar action in Raqqa, but that does not mean that we should not now be getting on with a full deployment of airstrikes to deal with the infrastructure that supports Daesh.