The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
855.
The Chiefs
discussed AM Torpy’s SSR paper on 16 March.819
The minutes
record:
“The
continuous burden of manning MTTs and STTTs [Short Term Training
Teams],
and its
potential impact on the requirement for augmentees was
highlighted.
DCJO(Ops)
[Maj Gen Wall] indicated that the majority of posts would
be filled from
current
force levels and that the requirement for UK augmentees was not
expected
to exceed
20.”
856.
On 17 March,
Mr Hoon’s Private Secretary wrote to No.10 to provide an
update
on SSR
progress.820
On the
creation of MTTs he stated:
“MNF‑I plan
to have Military Transition Teams (MTTs) established across Iraq
and
working
with Iraqi units by June. In MND(SE) we expect to have MTTs
established
by May. The
MTTs will train and mentor their affiliated Iraqi units, remaining
with
them both
in barracks and on security duties. In MND(SE) the MTT organisation
will
be
developed from the existing partnership arrangements between
coalition and ISF
units,
which first highlighted the benefits of this
approach.”
857.
The MOD’s
Directorate of Operational Capability considered the
differing
approaches
to mentoring the ISF undertaken by the UK and US militaries in
2010.821
It commented:
“The UK and
US approaches were fundamentally at odds; this was identified
by
those in
theatre at the time and reported back … The decision not to
embed mentors
… may seem
perplexing, particularly considering UK troops in Afghanistan
were
embedding
in this manner at that time …
“We have
pondered the reasons for this approach, without reaching an
entirely
satisfactory
conclusion. During interview a number of people have suggested
that
this very
different approach to embedding mentors between two UK theatres
of
operation,
as well as the difference between the UK and US approaches in
Iraq,
was that
senior politicians (or perhaps military leaders) in the UK were
risk‑, and
in
particular, casualty‑averse. Whether this is true, and if so
whether it can be
seen as a
result of the different way in which the two theatres were viewed
by the
British
public – Iraq as an unpopular “war of choice”, with Afghanistan a
“war of
necessity”
– is unclear. What is certain is that, at the time, the total
number and rate
of
casualties being experienced in Afghanistan were both far lower
than had been
suffered in
Iraq. We might reasonably conclude that this would have had an
effect
on the
political‑military discussions and decisions regarding embedding
and force
protection.
This seems especially likely as the focus in Iraq became
predominantly
on reducing
troop numbers in order to hand over to the Iraqi Security
Forces,
allowing
the UK forces to withdraw and focus on [Afghanistan].”
819
Minutes, 16
March 2005, Chiefs of Staff meeting.
820
Letter
Naworynsky to Quarrey, 17 March 2005, ‘Petraeus Plan
Update’.
821
Report
Directorate of Operational Capability, 17 March 2010, ‘Operation
TELIC Lessons Study Vol. 3’.
250