16.3 |
Military fatalities and the bereaved
16.
On 20
February, in response to the publication of a paper,
Iraq at the
Crossroads:
State and
Society in the Shadow of the Regime, by the
International Institute of Strategic
Studies
(IISS),8
Mr Blair
asked for advice on a number of questions, including: “What
is
our
military’s assessment of the likely consequences of an attack on
Iraq; i.e. how many
casualties;
how quickly the collapse?”9
17.
On 24
February, Mr Peter Watkins, Mr Hoon’s Principal Private
Secretary, wrote to
Mr Matthew
Rycroft, Mr Blair’s Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
advising that the
MOD
estimated that there would be between 30 and 60 British and between
500 and
1,200 Iraqi
“land battle” fatalities.10
Mr Watkins
also advised that work to estimate Iraqi
civilian
casualties continued.
18.
Lord Boyce,
Chief of the Defence Staff from 2001 to April 2003, told the
Inquiry that
Ministers
would have been informed of the MOD’s casualty estimates, as part
of the
routine
briefing process.11
19.
By 1 May, when
President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq
had
ended, 33
British Service Personnel had died serving on Op
TELIC.12
20.
Both
Lord Boyce and Sir Kevin Tebbit, MOD Permanent Under
Secretary from 2001
to 2005,
told the Inquiry that the actual number of casualties had been
fewer than the
MOD had
estimated.13
Sir Kevin
commented:
“… as far
as casualties are concerned, the assessment was that they would
not
be any
higher than we faced in the Gulf war 12 years earlier. So the
figures were
relatively
... modest. In the event, they were even lower than that. The
uncertainty
was ... the
possible use of chemical/biological weapons against us. I think
the
original
assessment was that Saddam was unlikely – but we couldn’t rule it
out
militarily
– unlikely to use them early ... but he might use them, and we
expected
him to use
them, as a matter of last resort, which, of course, informed the
nature
of military
planning.”
21.
Until the
Falklands Conflict in 1982, Service Personnel who died on
major
operations
were normally buried in theatre.14
22.
After the
Falklands Conflict, all bereaved families were offered the
opportunity to
have the
bodies of their relatives returned to the UK, largely because of
the difficulty
8
Oxford
University Press for the International Institute of Strategic
Studies: Iraq at the
Crossroads:
State and
Society in the Shadow of the Regime – Adelphi
Paper 354.
9
Minute
Rycroft to McDonald, 20 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Political and
Military Questions’.
10
Letter
Watkins to Rycroft, 24 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Political and Military
Questions’.
11 Public
hearing, 3 December 2009, page 94.
12
GOV.UK, 12
December 2012, British
Fatalities: Operations in Iraq.
13
Public
hearing, 3 December 2009, pages 94‑96.
14
Paper
DCDS(Pers), 14 March 2003, ‘UK Forces: Repatriation of the
Dead’.
79