6.1 |
Development of the military options for an invasion of
Iraq
908.
Mr Hoon
stated that Mr Blair “would have accepted” if there were
practical reasons
why the UK
could not offer Package 3, but his “assumption” was that “Downing
Street”
wanted to
offer a land contribution “if it could be done”.352
909.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit told the Inquiry that the Chiefs of Staff’s view was that
the UK
contribution
had to be “large enough to be able to integrate ourselves properly
with the
Americans”;
and the UK “shouldn’t be put in the position of expecting somebody
else to
defend us
or sustain us”.353
910.
Asked by the
Inquiry if he had a sense that the military were agitating to
make
sure that
they had a role, Sir David Manning replied that he needed to
be “very careful”
about that.
He had not seen any papers suggesting that and it seemed to him
that the
military
adopted different positions at different times.354
In the
“spring/summer of 2002”,
the
military wanted Mr Blair to understand the limits on what they
could deliver. But, by
autumn
2002, he sensed that “reluctance” had “shifted to an enthusiasm for
taking part”,
and the
“pressure” was to offer Package 3.
911.
Asked by the
Inquiry whether the US had requested a particular military scale
of
contribution
from the UK, Mr Blair said:
“No. He
[President Bush] very much left this to us, to decide what we
wanted to do,
but I had
taken a view that this was something that, if it was right to do,
actually it
mattered to
have Britain there …”355
912.
The
military arguments for the UK offering to lead a division in the
North
reflected
discussions with the US and the UK military assessment of
the
requirements
of the operation.
913.
Lt Gen Fry
told the Inquiry there had been a view that converging axes from
north
and south,
and avoiding logistic congestion in Kuwait and the risks associated
with
transit
through the Gulf, made “eminent military sense”. The northern
option offered
tactical
advantages. He had been “slightly more sanguine” about the length
of the lines
of
communication through Turkey than some of his colleagues. There
would also have
been more
freedom of manoeuvre and fewer bridging operations in the
North.356
914.
Lt Gen Fry
told the Inquiry that the co‑ordination of ground manoeuvre
operations
was
difficult and dangerous, and it was best to separate land forces
from different states
so far as
that was possible.357
352
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, page 57.
353
Private
hearing, 6 May 2010, page 70.
354
Private
hearing, 24 June 2010, page 100.
355
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 61.
356
Public
hearing, 16 December 2009, pages 14‑15.
357
Public
hearing, 16 December 2009, page 14.
313