2 |
Decision-making within government
126.
The agenda for
the weekly COS (Operations) meetings usually comprised
a
briefing
from the Chief of Defence Intelligence, followed by:
•
“political/military
overview”;
•
operational
planning;
•
media;
and
•
next
steps.
127.
By the autumn
of 2002, COS (Operations) meetings were attended by a range
of
military
and civilian officials or their representatives.
128.
In late
2002/early 2003, that included the MOD PUS, the Chief of
Defence
Logistics,
the DCDS(C), the Chief of Defence Intelligence, the Deputy Chief of
Defence
Staff
(Equipment Capability), the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff
(Personnel), the
Policy Director,
the Director General of Corporate Communications and,
frequently,
senior
officials from some or all of the Cabinet Office, the FCO, SIS and
GCHQ.
129.
The first
recorded attendance by a DFID representative was on 19 February
2003.
130.
Meetings with
Defence Ministers often followed COS (Operations) meetings.
The
papers
examined by the Inquiry for the period between 2001 and 2009
suggest that they
were
essentially briefing meetings and no records of the discussions
were produced.
131.
The MOD has
conducted an extensive search of its archives and no records
of
minutes for
these meetings have been located.
132.
Lord Boyce
told the Inquiry that attendance at COS meetings
provided
“transparency
of what the military were doing” for other departments, and that
they
would
provide inputs setting out their thinking.84
133.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit added that it was “a very important way of making sure
people
understood
the tempo of planning”.
134.
General Sir
John Reith, Chief of Joint
Operations from August 2001 to July 2004,
told the
Inquiry that PJHQ had a “very, very close relationship” with the
MOD and in
particular
with the Commitments Staff:
“… every
single paper that we produced at PJHQ was staffed through the …
MOD
before it
went under my signature into the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and we
had a
VTC [video
conference] every morning … I was on regular VTCs for the
op[erations]
Chiefs of
Staff meetings and for the Ministerials.”85
84
Public
hearing, 3 December 2009, page 80.
85
Private
hearing, 15 January 2010, pages 3-4.
287