6.1 |
Development of the military options for an invasion of
Iraq
8.
The principal
scales of effort defined in SDR 98 were:
•
small
scale: “a
deployment of battalion size or equivalent” such as the
Royal
Navy
ARMILLA patrol in the Gulf, the British contribution to United
Nations
Forces in
Cyprus (UNFICYP), and the Royal Air Force operations enforcing
the
No‑Fly
Zones (NFZs) over northern and southern Iraq;
•
medium
scale:
“deployments of brigade size or equivalent” for warfighting
or
other
operations, such as the UK contribution in the mid‑1990s to the
NATO‑led
Implementation
Force (IFOR) in Bosnia;
•
large
scale:
deployments of division size or equivalent, the “nearest
recent
example”
being the UK contribution to the 1991 Gulf Conflict, “although on
that
occasion
the British division deployed with only two of its three brigades”.
That
was “the
maximum size of force we would plan to be able to contribute to
peace
enforcement
operations, or to regional conflicts outside the NATO area”;
and
•
very large
scale and full scale: all the
forces that would be made available
to NATO to
meet a major threat such as significant aggression against an
ally.
The
difference between the two reflected the time available for
preparation –
“warning
time”, and the size of the threat.
9.
The Planning
Assumptions also defined:
•
endurance: the
likely duration of individual Military Tasks. The force
structure
for each
Service needed to be able to sustain tasks for the required
period,
including
where necessary by rotating individual units deployed and, where
units
were
deployed on operations, allowing units a period of respite between
each
deployment
as set out in the “Harmony Guidelines”4
of each
Service.
•
concurrency: the
number of operations of a given scale of effort and
duration
that could
be sustained by the force structure. SDR 98 concluded that “not
to
be able to
conduct two medium scale operations at the same time would be
an
unacceptable
constraint on our ability to discharge Britain’s commitments
and
responsibilities.
It would, for example, oblige us to withdraw from an
enduring
commitment
such as Bosnia in order to respond to a second
crisis.”5
10.
The Defence
Strategic Plan (DSP), a confidential MOD document, included
greater
detail than
was published in the SDR report.6
It
identified specific readiness criteria in
relation to
operations against Iraq, stating:
“… we need
to maintain the ability to respond within short warning times to an
Iraqi
threat, and
to build up forces thereafter. This again requires us to hold
capabilities
needed to
mount a medium scale deployment at high readiness (30 days). For
a
4
Harmony
guidelines are explained in Section 16.1.
5
Ministry of
Defence, Strategic
Defence Review: Supporting Essays, July
1998. Supporting Essay 6,
Future
Military Capabilities.
6
Ministry of
Defence 1998, ‘Defence Strategic Plan 1998’.
177