1.2 |
Development of UK strategy and options, September 2000 to September
2001
359.
Mr McKane
responded to Mr Brummell’s letter on 16 October (see Section
3.1).
360.
Mr Webb told
the Inquiry that, in the event of a coalition plane being shot down
in
the
NFZs:
“We had a
contingency plan … which was run from the joint headquarters in
Saudi
Arabia. The
objective would have been the safety of the air crew … to basically
go
and get
them back if wounded on the ground inside Iraq, whether or not the
Iraqis
tried to
stop us doing it … it is called ‘combat search and rescue’ … it was
on stand
by all the
time these [NFZ] operations were being flown and it didn’t need
Ministerial
authorisation
to go out and do that, and, as I’m implying, as well as just
getting in
there and
picking up the air crew and looking after them medically, if
necessary, we
would have
kept the Iraqi forces away … there was a debate to be had … of
what’s
necessary
to keep the – if I might put it like this – Iraqi forces’ head[s]
down while
we went and
recovered the crew, as opposed to also signalling that we wished
they
would not
do it again.”197
361.
In late
summer 2001, reports on US contingency planning for the loss
of
aircraft
caused concern within the UK Government.
362.
On 29 August,
Mr Webb advised Mr Robert Cooper, Head of the Overseas
and
Defence
Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, that the US Central Command
(CENTCOM)
had
reviewed its contingency plans for the loss of a coalition aircraft
in the NFZs.198
The revised
plan, understood to have been endorsed in principle, “provides for
a major
offensive
operation, distinct from measures taken to recover downed aircrew,
against a
wide range
of targets across Iraq within four hours of a shoot-down being
confirmed”.
363.
Mr Webb
described the US proposals as “of a piece with DoD [US
Department
of Defense]
ideas on future responses to Iraqi threats (‘more savage, less
often’)”. The
main legal
concern was the breadth of the list of targets within Baghdad
included in the
revised
plan.
364.
In a
manuscript note on his copy of Mr Webb’s letter, Mr Stephen
Wright,
FCO Deputy
Under Secretary of State (Defence and Intelligence), asked Mr Patey
for
advice,
adding:
“On the
substance, I think we should strongly advise the US against their
proposed
strategy:
it is politically and legally all wrong for both the US and the
UK.”199
197
Public
hearing, 24 November 2009, pages 148-149.
198
Letter Webb
to Cooper, 29 August 2001, ‘Iraq: US Contingency Planning for the
Loss of an Aircraft’.
199
Manuscript
comment Wright on Letter Webb to Cooper, 29 August 2001, ‘Iraq: US
Contingency
Planning
for the Loss of an Aircraft’.
261