US Senator Chuck Hagel
legal justifications, for further delay to a timetable that was
was in all its specifics not necessarily applicable to the pre-
well-established and formally prescribed. He described the
cise circumstances of the Gulf, but in setting it out he felt it
security situation inside Iraq by noting that 15 of 18 prov-
did provide a useful example of the scope and forms of col-
inces were essentially stable, and went on to comment on
lective and individual action which might be contemplated
the steady progress being made by Iraq’s own security
by Gulf states. Domestically, Singapore’s strategy involved
forces. Some of Daoud’s conclusions were challenged in a
capacity-building and the facilitation of interagency coor-
spirited way by another Iraqi present at the conference, but
dination. Abroad, it comprised multilateral cooperation on
the National Security Adviser welcomed the fact that it was
maritime security, intelligence exchanges and data collec-
now possible for a minister of state to be held to account by
tion, and a dialogue between law-enforcement and police
a private Iraqi citizen in such a public manner.
agencies throughout Southeast Asia.
Singapore, as a country that has been a target of the
A British perspective was provided by Sir Nigel
al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah, has evolved a com-
Sheinwald, Foreign Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister
prehensive counter-terrorism strategy. Dr Tony Tan Keng
and Head of the Overseas and Defence Secretariat of the
Yam, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating
UK Cabinet Office. British counter-terrorism policy, he
Minister for Security and Defence, argued that this strategy
said, was guided by the need to pursue terrorist at the
(l–r) Maj.-Gen. Dr Rashad Muhammad AlAlimi, Yemen’s Interior Minister; National Security Advisor of Iraq, Dr Kassim Daoud; and IISS Director Dr John Chipman
10 | The 1st IISS Regional Security Summit