The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

817.  Gen Dannatt referred the Inquiry to the ECAB meeting in January 2006433 where

the Board was informed that there would be further delays to the FRES programme:

“What we decided to do was to persuade Lord Drayson, then the Defence

Procurement Minister, that we had a major problem, and it was decided to lay on

equipment demonstration on Salisbury Plain and get him to come and see it on the

basis seeing is believing, and then come to Headquarters Land and discuss the

issues. As Commander in Chief I was given the task to put that together.

“We took one of everything that we had and Lord Drayson saw what we had and

saw what we didn’t have and quite clearly what we didn’t have was anything in that

medium bracket … on the one hand we had these good heavy equipments, on the

other hand some good light equipments. In the middle we had nothing.

“In the car on the way back from Salisbury Plain to Headquarters Land he said to

me, ‘I didn’t know the army had a problem. Since I have become Minister of Defence

Procurement I have been focusing on jets and on aircraft carriers. I didn’t realise

the army had a problem’. To his great credit he then realised we had a problem and

began to put some leadership and energy into it.”434

818.  Mr Brown told the Inquiry that FRES was the programme “that was interesting the

military the most”, but his understanding was that “even if it had been carried out in full”,

it would “not have given us the right vehicles … for Iraq”.435

819.  The Inquiry asked Lord Drayson about the concerns about FRES expressed by

Generals Jackson and Dannatt, and the relationship between progress on FRES and

concerns about Snatch.436 Lord Drayson replied:

“The FRES project had become delayed, partly because the experience on

operations … led to repeated changes to the specification, and partly because the

user requirement had become much too complicated …

“The project to improve/replace Snatch was always separate … The Generals

stressed the urgent need to replace the ageing fleet of Army Fighting Vehicles as a

whole when voicing their concerns over delays to FRES … Snatch was a Protected

Patrol Vehicle rather than an AFV … In terms of augmenting Protected Patrol

Vehicles such as Snatch the focus in early 2006 for the Army was … Vector which

in March 2006 I was told was General Dannatt’s highest priority …

“Progress on FRES and concerns about Snatch should not have been connected

in theory … In reality however, I believe the Army’s difficulty in deciding upon a

433  Gen Dannatt’s evidence during his public hearing was that this meeting was in 2005. Based on the

papers provided, the Inquiry has concluded this must have been an error in his recollection.

434  Public hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 64‑68.

435  Public hearing, 5 March 2010, page 117.

436  Statement, 15 December 2010, pages 3‑4.

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