1.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September 2000 to September
2001
339.
Reports of a
“planned large-scale military response to recent events in
the
southern
No-Fly Zone”, “sourced to the Pentagon”, appeared in the media on
27 July.185
340.
Mr McKane
wrote to No.10 on 1 August, advising that military planners within
the
Pentagon
and the MOD had discussed options. The Pentagon option was for a
raid
involving
attacks on 30 targets, two-thirds of which were north of the
southern No-Fly
Zone and
within 20 miles of Baghdad. The UK preference was to attack 20
targets,
12 of
which lay within 20 miles of Baghdad. Each of the proposed targets
was connected
with the
Iraqi air-defence system though two were in the vicinity of the
civilian airports
at Baghdad
and Basra which had civilian as well as military
roles.186
341.
Lord Goldsmith
was provided with written briefing on the US proposals and
met
MOD
officials on 1 and 8 August.187
342.
An official in
Mr Hoon’s Private Office wrote to No.10 on 2 August setting
out
the
issues:
“Whilst
coalition aircraft have continued to come under regular attack by
the Iraqi
air
defences, the military assessment was until very recently that the
overall risk
remained
manageable. Events over recent weeks have, however, brought this
into
question,
with July seeing an alarming increase in the number of occasions on
which
coalition
aircraft have narrowly avoided being shot down (ten separate
incidents in
the south
alone, compared to eleven in the previous four months
combined).”188
343.
The increased
risk reflected greater Iraqi capability and “coalition restraint
over the
past three
months”.
344.
Decisions on
the operation were likely to be delayed by US concern about
the
reaction of
“moderate Arab governments” which were “already under pressure as
a
result of
developments in Israel and Palestine”, and by the US appreciation
of the likely
propaganda
benefits to Saddam Hussein from such attacks. The debate within the
US
Administration
on how to respond to the attacks on coalition aircraft had
broadened into
a wider one
about the direction of US policy, “with advocates of hitting Saddam
harder
using this
as an opportunity to move the argument in that
direction”.
345.
Mr Hoon’s
Private Office concluded:
“The
Defence Secretary is convinced of the need, in the face of the
substantially
increased
threat, to take action to reduce the risk to the Service
Personnel
conducting
this task [patrolling the Zones]. Whilst he understands the
political
and
presentational arguments for delay, his preference would have been
for a
185
Minute
Tanfield to PS/Straw, 27 July 2001, ‘Secretary of State’s
Conversation with Colin Powell,
27 July:
Iraq NFZs’.
186
Letter
McKane to Tatham, 1 August 2001, ‘Iraq: No-Fly Zones’.
187
Letter
Brummell to Nash, 9 August 2001, ‘Iraq: No-Fly Zones (NFZs) –
Target Clearance’.
188
Letter
Moffatt to Tatham, 2 August 2001, ‘Iraq: RO4’.
257