Iraq (Operation Telic) and Afghanistan (Operation Herrick) – on 28 April 2006. Operations in Iraq In May 2006, shortly after becoming CDS, Stirrup visited Iraq to assess the situation first hand. The British responsibility was in the south of Iraq and on his return Stirrup reported to the Defence Secretary that Basra was the key to success in southern Iraq. Stirrup identified two obstacles to success, the first being the militias and the second being the need for an acceptable level of Iraqi governance. In addition, he took the view that Iranian interference was a significant exacerbating factor. Noting that neither of two obstacles could be fully dealt with by the British Armed Forces, Stirrup viewed the solution as being essentially political. In order to take action against the militias, the local British commander in South East Iraq developed a plan to conduct aggressive operations against them. At the same time Stirrup became increasingly concerned that strong political leadership from the Iraqis was lacking and that without this any gains made by the military actions against the militias would be to no avail. In July 2006, Stirrup overturned the previous military advice to the Defence Secretary by stating that force levels in South East Iraq would need to be maintained. Previously it had been thought that they could be reduced from over 7,000 to between 3,000 and 4,000. In September 2006, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, blocked the British plan to act against the militias which Stirrup believed was because of Maliki's dependence on Sadrist support at that stage. The original British plan was replaced by Operation Sinbad which was acceptable to the Iraqis and was executed from September 2006 to February 2007. Along with other Coalition commanders, Stirrup viewed Sinbad as insufficient because it did not involve directly attacking the militias. Believing that it would not deliver the level of improvements in security that the British wanted, Stirrup began looking at the high risk strategy of withdrawing British troops from inside Basra which would have left the Iraqis in the position of either having to deal with the security problems themselves or losing control of Iraq's second city. Following the end of Operation Sinbad, the military situation for the British in Basra worsened and the British base at Basra Palace was repeatedly attacked. However, by summer 2007, Maliki's political position no longer depended on Sadrist support and Muqtada