The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
in EP07”
meant that there was no guarantee that funding would be found. The
official
gave three
examples of those priorities, one of which was additional
FRES funding.
533.
The official
did not recommend which option Lord Drayson should approve. It
was
also stated
that longer‑term consideration was needed to understand “how this
enduring
capability
might be met, to replace the Snatch/Vector mix”.
534.
Lord Drayson
was also informed that, of the £74.5m the DMB had allocated to
the
PPV
programme in FY 2005/06, £11m would not be spent.
535.
Gen Dannatt
told the Inquiry that, from the time of the announcement in June
2004
that the
Headquarters ARRC would be deployed to Afghanistan in 2006,
“whatever was
happening
in Iraq and however Iraq was going to develop, there was going to
be another
operation
in Afghanistan in the middle of 2006”; and that:
“…
everything as far as I was concerned to do with Iraq from the time
that I became
Commander
in Chief in March 2005 was not just in the context uniquely of
Iraq, but
in the
wider context of ‘… and we are going to be involved in Afghanistan
as well’.”277
536.
Gen Dannatt
told the Inquiry that, in his view:
•
Afghanistan
was “perhaps much more important to get right”;
•
“resourcing
the operation in Afghanistan was particularly important”;
and
•
“Afghanistan
would always develop as being the main effort”.
537.
Referring to
the decision to procure Vector vehicles, Gen Dannatt told the
Inquiry
that one of
the brigades going into Afghanistan “had no vehicles at all” and
the Army
“knew that
by spring 2007 we had to have something for them”.278
Gen Dannatt
said that
the Vector
programme was decided “in something of a hurry”.
538.
The
procurement of the remaining 104 Vector vehicles, to bring the
total to 166,
was
progressed as part of Maj Gen Applegate’s response to the
armoured vehicle
review in
June 2006. That is addressed later in this Section.
539.
Further
fatalities in Iraq prompted questions about what more could be done
to
provide
better protection for British troops.
540.
On 31 January
2006, Corporal Gordon Pritchard was killed whilst on patrol
in
Umm Qasr
when the Land Rover in which he was travelling was hit by a
roadside IED.279
Three other
soldiers were injured, one seriously, in the same
incident.
277
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 14‑15.
278
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 52‑53.
279
GOV.UK,
31 January
2006, Corporal
Gordon Alexander Pritchard killed in Iraq; BBC, 31 January
2006,
British
forces suffer 100th Iraq death.
88