Direct Communications Unit

2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

Switchboard 020 7035 4848 Fax: 020 7035 4745 Textphone: 020 7035 4742

E-mail: [Home Office request email] Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

[FOI #547 email]

Mr Laurence Rowe

Reference: T21930/8

Dear Mr Rowe,

Thank you for your e-mail of 7 October 2008 enquiring about the response to your earlier email of 7 July 2008. I apologise for the delay in responding to this.

In your email dated 7 July 2008 you query the Home Office comments reported in an article on The Independent newspaper's website dated 18 May 2008. You asked what documents the Home Office spokesman relied on when speaking with the journalist from The Independent newspaper. I am writing further to our email of 4 August. We are now in a position to offer a full reply to your request.

I am pleased to be able to disclose the information that you requested to you.

When approached by the journalist our spokesman followed the normal procedure and queried the Home Office's press database to see if the Department had been asked a similar question before.

Querying the database yielded a question and answer from the launch of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. It is this information from the database our spokesman relied on when speaking to the journalist. The information from the database is as follows:

Are you conceding that the Iraq war and UK invasion of Iraq have fuelled extremism?

No. It is the right of every citizen to question UK foreign policy and to have the freedom to debate and disagree. Understand that not everyone agreed with decision to intervene in Iraq. But the UK government did so because of wider issues not because it is a Muslim country. No foreign policy issue justifies terrorism or advocating it.

Must bear in mind that the threat from international terrorism existed before the Iraq war:

Feb 1993 World Trade Centre - 6 dead.

Aug 1998 bombings of US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya 224 dead, mostly locals.

11 Sept 2001 World Trade Centre, Pentagon 2992 killed.

April 2002 historic synagogue in Tunisia bombed 21 dead including European tourists.

May 2002 hotel bombed in Karachi 14 killed.

Oct 2002 Bali bombs 202 dead, mostly tourists.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint within two months to the below address quoting reference 10111.

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

I hope that you find this information of interest, and would like to assure you that you have been supplied with all relevant information that the Home Office holds.

Yours sincerely

J Fanshaw