The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
190.
The Inquiry
has seen no indications that the Cabinet Office trial was taken
further.
191.
A detailed
brief on civilian casualties produced for Mr Blair on 18
December in
advance of
his visit to Iraq made no mention of the trial or its
conclusions.122
192.
An IPU
official informed Mr Straw’s Private Office on 15 December
that the MOD
was now
ready to “step forward and explain why it is impossible for us to
use our military
assets in
Iraq to get an estimate [of civilian casualties]”.123
The
official commented that
this was
welcome. It would force the MOD to take some responsibility for
managing one
of the
“bear‑traps” in the UK’s existing policy:
“… although
we say there are no reliable estimates of civilian casualties in
Iraq,
there are
estimates of a kind that are made by MND(SE) and others made
by
the
Pentagon. They’re unreliable but are used for military planning
purposes as
evidence of
trends …”
193.
Mr Ingram
made that statement on 27 January 2005, in response to a
question
from
Mr Peter Kilfoyle.124
Mr Ingram
stated that an analysis of incident reports between
1 May
2003 and 26 November 2004 indicated that 200 Iraqi citizens
believed to have
been enemy
combatants had died, and 80 had been injured, in incidents where
military
force had
been deliberately applied by UK forces. Five Iraqi citizens
believed not to
have been
enemy combatants had died, and a further 13 had been injured, in
incidents
during the
course of which military force had been deliberately applied by UK
forces.
These
figures did not necessarily indicate that UK forces caused the
casualties, only that
they
recorded them during the course of incidents in which deliberate
military force was
applied.
194.
Mr Ingram
also stated that 17 Iraqi citizens believed to have been
enemy
combatants
had died, and 22 had been injured, during the course of other
incidents,
and 144
Iraqi citizens believed not to have been enemy combatants had died,
and
192 had
been injured, during the course of other incidents. This included
the full range
of
incidents in which UK forces had been involved but where no
deliberate military force
had been
applied, for example Improvised Explosive Device attacks by
insurgent forces
on civilian
targets, road traffic accidents and in one case the discovery in
May 2003 of a
mass grave,
thought to date back to 1991, containing 32 bodies.
195.
Mr Ingram
stated that those figures should not be taken as an accurate
estimate
of Iraqi
casualties; they captured only those casualties which were
witnessed or
discovered
by UK forces. The figures did not include the major combat
operations phase
of
Op TELIC, prior to 1 May 2003, for which incident reports were
not routinely submitted
when
casualties were “discovered”.
122
Minute
Quarrey to Prime Minister, 18 December 2004, ‘Your Visit to Iraq’
attaching Briefing, [undated],
‘Civilian
Casualties’.
123
Email IPU
[junior official] to PS/Straw, 15 December 2004, ‘Civilian
Casualties: MOD Line’.
124
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 27
January 2005, column 541W.
204