The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

harder but equally … we were absolutely determined that Watchkeeper was one

programme that was not going to get derailed by people changing their minds

midway through …”

1302. Speaking about the areas of capability in which it was not possible to invest to

the extent he would have liked, Lt Gen Figgures said of ISTAR:

“Did we anticipate the requirement we would need [to] provide coverage of areas as

big as southern Iraq or as big as Afghanistan? No we didn’t and therefore we had to

develop that.”682

1303. The Inquiry asked Gen Dannatt about his visit report from October 2006 where

he had raised the need for greater ISTAR capability.683 He referred to the Watchkeeper

programme and said that was another example of where savings were made to the

programme only to be added back later as a UOR or emergency programme:

“Once a real operational requirement for UAVs was derived for Iraq and Afghanistan,

surprise, surprise, energy was then put back into the Watchkeeper programme.

Money was added back into the Watchkeeper programme. Hermes 450 … was

brought forward.”

1304. Gen Dannatt told the Inquiry that it was difficult to have a balanced programme

of capability for future when the present was “staring you very bloodily in the face”.684

He added:

“The trick is not to be so wrong that you can’t adjust when the future reveals

itself. That’s what I think we should be working towards at the present moment.

Absolutely funding properly what is staring us in the face, which today is Afghanistan

and previously was Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t think we did that.”

1305. The DOC report in March 2010 also recognised “the profound and fundamental

impact” that running two medium scale operations concurrently had on resources

afforded to Iraq.685

1306. The DOC considered the impact of the UK’s decision in 2005 to return to

Afghanistan and stated as a key lesson that “knowingly exceeding Defence Planning

Assumptions requires the most rigorous analysis”.

1307. The DOC wrote that running two concurrent, enduring medium scale operations,

in excess of the Defence Planning Assumptions, had a “profound and fundamental

impact on the progression of Op TELIC between 2006 and 2009”. It added:

682 Public hearing, 27 July 2010, pages 21‑22.

683 Public hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 68‑69.

684 Public hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 71‑72.

685 Report DOC, 17 March 2010, ‘Operation TELIC Lessons Study Vol. 4’.

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