6.1 |
Development of the military options for an invasion of
Iraq
683.
On 20
September, the MOD sought Mr Blair’s agreement to offer
Package 3
as a
“possible add‑on” to CENTCOM “for planning purposes”.
684.
On 20
September, Mr Watkins wrote to Sir David Manning,
advising that two issues
needed
quickly to be addressed:
•
what
potential UK force contribution should be presented to a US
planning
conference
the following week; and
•
whether to
replace army units already allocated to Op FRESCO so that
they
would be
available if a land force contribution was
approved.272
685.
The MOD
proposed that the air and maritime package with Special
Forces
(Package
2), should be presented as a potential UK contribution at the
CENTCOM
planning
conference; and that further work was under way on whether the UK
might
also offer
a Commando Group of around 1,700 Royal Marines for early operations
in
southern
Iraq. It would need to be established whether that could be
sustained in parallel
with ground
operations in the North.
686.
The MOD had
also considered the provision of a divisional
headquarters
together
with an armoured brigade to operate with the US (Package 3). That
would be
“more
complicated”, but the Chiefs of Staff regarded that as the “minimum
sensible”
ground
contribution to operations in the North. It would entail a
commitment of around
28,000
service personnel in addition to the 13,000 in Package 2, and the
call‑out of
around
6,000 Reservists – a decision that would need to be taken and
announced in
mid‑October.
687.
Mr Watkins
told Sir David that Mr Hoon felt it would be “premature”
to offer a
ground
contribution on the same basis as Package 2:
“… we
should indicate to CENTCOM that we are still considering this
option and that
they should
model two plans in parallel, one including the UK land force
contribution
and one
without it.”
688.
Mr Watkins
also wrote that a “publicly visible measure” to remove units
from
Op FRESCO
would be needed to keep the option of a ground force open.
Mr Hoon
recommended
that Mr Blair’s statement to the House of Commons, which
had
been
recalled to debate Iraq on 24 September (see Section 3.5), would
provide the
opportunity
to make clear “as part of the Government’s policy that the will of
[the] United
Nations
must ultimately be backed up by the threat of force”, and that the
Ministry of
Defence
would be taking some prudent contingency measures to avoid
foreclosing
military
options.
689.
Some public
acknowledgement that MOD was involved in contingency
work
would also
allow “discreet discussions” to begin with industry. That was
“increasingly
272
Letter
Watkins to Manning, 20 September 2002, ‘Iraq: Potential UK
Contribution to Any Military Action’.
277