14.1 |
Military equipment (post-conflict)
“The
challenges of prioritising insufficient resource, in terms of
personnel,
equipment,
funding, planning and decision making effort, between Iraq
and
Afghanistan,
have had a direct and negative effect on the UK’s ability to carry
out
all its
tasks and responsibilities in both campaigns. These pressures of
prioritising
resources
between the assumed, but ultimately not achieved, rapid drawdown
in
requirements
of Op TELIC, and the increases required over and above the
initial
estimate of
troop numbers for Op HERRICK, were significant …”
1308.
The DOC stated
that the growing casualty rates in Basra in 2006 and
2007
increased
public pressure on politicians to devote more resources to Iraq but
by that
point
“there was very limited scope to reverse, or even stop troop
drawdown in Iraq:
“There had
been a considerable hollowing out of capability in Basra over this
period,
as a
consequence of the need to meet the increasing demands of
Afghanistan.”
1309.
Speaking about
balancing the two commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan,
General Sir
Nicholas Houghton told the Inquiry:
“I felt in
Iraq, we could deliver the strategy, with risk, with the means that
were
available,
but it became relatively quickly evident that within Afghanistan we
were
not
militarily in a position of strategic coherence. We did not have
the means to
deliver on
objectives, and, therefore the requirement … to make us
strategically
rebalanced
in Afghanistan.”686
1310.
Gen Houghton
said that it was not “troop numbers per se” that was the
problem,
but rather
the “strategic and operational enablement of them through what are
rare
breed
capabilities” such as strategic lift, ISTAR, aviation and attack
helicopters.
1311.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit told the Inquiry that he was “very concerned” about
the
discussions
in 2004 to deploy an additional force to Afghanistan because the UK
was
still
“heavily engaged in Iraq” and was still recuperating from its large
scale operation
during the
invasion.687
The view of
the Chiefs of Staff was that “they could do it and it
was
manageable” and so Sir Kevin did not press his “objections
fully”.
1312.
The “planning
assumption” was that the UK should put itself forward
because
“if the UK
didn’t come forward, nobody else was going to”. If the UK came
forward, it
was hoped
that would create “a snowball effect”, with other countries
providing “support
forces,
helicopters, the things that we were relatively lacking in”.
Sir Kevin recognised
that it was
not possible to predict at that time, mid‑2005, whether the UK
would secure
those
commitments.
1313.
Gen Jackson
was asked by the Inquiry whether Ministers were advised,
when
they took
the decision in 2004 to deploy UK forces to Afghanistan, that it
would reduce
their
options in Iraq.688
686
Public
hearing, 5 January 2010, pages 35‑38.
687
Public
hearing, 3 February 2010, pages 14‑17.
688
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 65‑67.
221