The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
766.
The decision
not to allow the use of US support in Basra was an important
one.
The Inquiry
considers that the question of what was needed to make Op
SALAMANCA
a success
should have been addressed directly by ACM Stirrup, whose
response
instead
precluded proper consideration of whether additional UK resources
would be
required.
767.
There was
continuing resistance to any suggestion that UK forces
should
operate
outside MND(SE) and there may have been concern that US
participation in
Op
SALAMANCA would have led to an obligation on the UK to engage more
outside
MND(SE).
This might not, as ACM Stirrup observed, be consistent with a
commitment
to drawdown,
but might have reduced the risk of strategic failure.
768.
The nature of
Op SALAMANCA was constrained by the Iraqi Government
in
September
2006, so that the eventual operation (renamed Operation SINBAD)
left
“Basra in
the hands of the militant militia and death squads, with the ISF
unable to
impose, let
alone maintain, the rule of law”.269
This
contributed to the conditions which
led the UK
into negotiations with JAM in early 2007.
769.
Attempts were
subsequently made to present Op SINBAD as equivalent to
the
2007 US
surge. Although there was some resemblance between the “Clear,
Hold, Build”
tactics to
be used by US surge forces and the UK’s tactics for Op SINBAD, the
UK
operation
did not deploy sufficient additional resources to conduct “Hold”
and “Build”
phases with
anything like the same strategic effect. The additional 360 troops
deployed
by the UK
could not have had the same effect as the more than 20,000 troops
surged
into
Baghdad and its environs by the US.
770.
At the end of
2006, tensions between the military and civilian teams in
MND(SE)
became
explicit. In a report to Mr Blair, Major General Richard
Shirreff, General
Officer
Commanding MND(SE), diagnosed that the existing arrangement, in
which the
Provincial
Reconstruction Team was located in Kuwait, “lacks unity of command
and
unity of
purpose”270
and
proposed the establishment of a “Joint Inter‑Agency Task
Force”
in Basra
led by the General Officer Commanding MND(SE).
771.
ACM Stirrup’s
advice to Mr Blair was that it was “too late” to
implement
Maj Gen Shirreff’s
proposal. That may have been the right conclusion, but
the
effect was to
deter consideration of a real problem and of ways in which military
and
civilian
operations in MND(SE) could be better aligned.
772.
The adequacy
of UK force levels in Iraq and the effectiveness of the UK’s
efforts in
MND(SE)
were explicitly questioned in Maj Gen Shirreff’s end of tour
report.
269
Minute
Shirreff, 21 September 2006, ‘GOC MND(SE) – Southern Iraq Update –
21 September 2006’.
270
Letter
Shirreff to Blair, 29 December 2006, [untitled].
106