16.4 |
Conclusions: Service Personnel
•
The MOD was
less effective at providing support to Service Personnel who
were
mobilised
individually (a category which included almost all Reservists) and
their
families,
than to formed units.
3.
In 2002, the
UK military was already operating at, and in some cases beyond,
the
limits of
the guidelines agreed in the 1998 Strategic
Defence Review. As a
result, the
Services’
Harmony Guidelines (which defined how much time a member of a
particular
Service
should spend away from home and the period between tours) were
being
breached
for some units and specialist trades.
4.
The
Government’s decision to contribute a military force to a US-led
invasion of Iraq
inevitably
increased the risk that the Harmony Guidelines would be
breached.
5.
There are no
indications that the potential pressure on Service Personnel
was
a
consideration in the Government’s decision to contribute a military
force, and in
particular
a large scale land force (a division), to a US-led invasion of
Iraq.
6.
The Inquiry
concludes in Section 9.8 that, throughout 2004 and 2005, it appears
that
senior
members of the Armed Forces reached the view that there was little
more that
would be
achieved in southern Iraq and that it would make more sense to
concentrate
UK military
effort on Afghanistan where it might have greater
effect.
7.
In July 2005,
Ministers agreed in principle proposals presented by Dr John Reid,
the
Defence
Secretary, both for the transfer to Iraqi control of the four
provinces in southern
Iraq for
which the UK had security responsibility, and for the redeployment
of the UK
effort in
Afghanistan from the north to Helmand province in the south (see
Section 9.4).
The
proposals were based on high-risk assumptions about the capability
of the Iraqi
Security
Forces to take the lead for security.
8.
In January
2006, Cabinet approved the deployment of a UK military force
to
Helmand.
9.
The MOD’s
formal advice to Dr Reid was that this deployment was
“achievable
without
serious damage to Harmony”, although certain units and specialists
would be
“placed
under increased, but manageable, stress”.1
10.
There were
different views within the MOD over the effect of the
deployment
on
personnel. Lieutenant General Anthony Palmer, Deputy Chief of the
Defence
Staff
(Personnel) from 2002 to August 2005, told the Inquiry that, as he
left post,
he
expressed his concern that deploying two brigades simultaneously
(to Iraq and
1
Minute
Hutton to APS/SofS [MOD], 17 January 2006, ‘Afghanistan
Deployments’.
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