13.1 |
Resources
382.
Mr McKane
directed MOD colleagues on 15 April to start turning their
“broad
estimates”
of post‑conflict and recuperation costs into a more detailed claim
to the
383.
Two weeks
later, on 30 April, the MOD reported to the Treasury
that:
•
actual and
forecast expenditure relating to Phase I (preparation of
military
forces) and
Phase II (deployment) was £807m;
•
actual and
forecast expenditure to 30 April relating to Phase III
(war‑fighting)
was
£681m;
•
forecast
expenditure relating to Phase IV (post‑conflict) for 2003/04 was
£982m;
and
•
forecast
expenditure for Phase V (recuperation) for 2003/04 was
£400m.223
384.
The MOD
advised that the figures for Phases III, IV and V were their “first
forecast”
and
“necessarily imprecise at this stage”. The MOD also confirmed that
the overall cost
of
Op TELIC would remain within the £3bn announced by
Mr Brown on 9 April.
385.
In the light
of the publicity surrounding the funding and management of the
defence
programme
in 2003 and 2004, the Inquiry examined two related
questions:
•
the size of
the MOD’s core budget and whether it imposed constraints
on
operations
in Iraq; and
•
whether the
imposition of controls on the MOD’s management of its
resources
by the
Treasury in September 2003 had an impact on operations in
Iraq.
386.
The 1998
Strategic Defence Review (SDR) signified a major shift
towards
expeditionary
armed forces, involving the rapid deployment of sustainable
military
force often
over long distances.224
The SDR
recognised that while the collapse of
the Warsaw
Pact had removed a direct military threat to the UK, indirect
threats still
persisted.
Countering those threats would require more mobile, responsive and
flexible
armed
forces.
387.
Section 6.3
describes progress in implementing the shift in military
capability
required by
the 1998 SDR.
222
Minute
McKane to DG Resources, 15 April 2003, ‘OP TELIC: Recuperation
Costs and the Cost
of Lessons
Learned’.
223
Letter
PS/Hoon to PS/Boateng, 30 April 2003, ‘Operation Telic: Iraq Costs
Update’.
224
Ministry of
Defence, Strategic
Defence Review Command Paper 3999, 8 July
1998.
505