The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“we had
forgotten institutionally how to deal with this” after the long
period of ceasefire
in Northern
Ireland.
409.
Lt Gen Riley
added that “the armour on the Warrior and Challenger main
battle
tanks was
upgraded very rapidly”. The Snatch vehicles were also upgraded
and
“a new
series of vehicles which were more effective” were introduced. But
“the sort
of vehicles
that we employ now in Afghanistan were just not in production” and
there
was “no
technological silver bullet” to address the problem. The US was
still “relying
on the
Humvee … largely”. The UK “had not procured anything and there was
little on
the market
that could have been deployed to assist me”.
410.
When the
Inquiry asked whether the IED threat had been brought to his
attention
during his
time as Defence Secretary, Mr Hoon said:
“I think it
was beginning to develop at the time that I left the department
[May 2005]
411.
Asked whether
the UK was unable to move around in a protected way once
the
insurgency
in Iraq developed, Sir Kevin Tebbit replied:
“I don’t
think … that was not anticipated because of lack of money. I think
that was
not
anticipated because we hadn’t seen the threat evolving as rapidly
as it did with
IEDs and
roadside bombs. That developed so very quickly from
2004.”209
412.
Sir Kevin
added: “I think the roadside bomb, the IED threat evolved very,
very
rapidly in
a way we hadn’t anticipated, and we hadn’t really got grounds to
have
expected,
frankly.”
413.
Gen Dannatt
told the Inquiry that the circumstances in Iraq:
“… became
very difficult from the summer of 2005, particularly most
dramatically
evidenced
by the appearance of … explosively formed projectiles, in threes,
that
were
sufficiently effective that even our most protected vehicles were
at risk …”210
414.
When asked by
the Inquiry what he was being asked to produce to support
force
readiness
for the growing insurgency, Gen Dannatt said: “The critical
deficiency was
force
protection measures, vehicles in particular.”
415.
At their
meeting on 5 October, the Chiefs of Staff noted that “the high
tempo of
insurgent
PIR technological and tactical innovation was forcing equally rapid
evolution
of Coalition
countermeasures”.211
208
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, pages 199‑200.
209
Private
hearing, 6 May 2010, pages 46‑47.
210
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 16‑18.
211
Minutes, 5
October 2005, Chiefs of Staff meeting.
70