The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
961.
As
Sir David Manning foresaw in his advice of 16 October,
however, far from
reducing
the risk of significant commitments post‑conflict, contributing
ground
forces
created significant obligations and responsibilities for the UK
post‑conflict.
962.
Mr Hoon
told the Inquiry that there was a sense that it was better to be in
Iraq at
the
beginning of any operation, rather than go in later for a
peacekeeping operation
without
having prior experience and information.378
There were
also concerns that would
require
more troops for longer.
963.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit confirmed that one of the arguments for offering land
forces
for combat
operations was that the MOD had not wanted “to get caught in the
role of
follow‑on
forces because then we could find ourselves even more bogged down
and
under even
greater pressure to stay for longer than we felt …
sensible”.379
The UK
had
been caught
anyway, although Sir Kevin suggested that taking part in the
invasion had
made it
easier to reduce UK force levels after the conflict than it would
have been if the
force had
deployed only for post‑conflict tasks.
964.
The
recognition of that responsibility in the planning for
post‑conflict operations
is addressed
in Sections 6.4 and 6.5.
965.
The MOD and
No.10 both raised the question of whether there could be
an
issue of
managing morale if the Army was not involved in combat
operations.
966.
The balance
of the evidence suggests that none of the key
decision‑takers
regarded
that as a decisive factor in the decision, which would clearly have
been
inappropriate.
967.
Mr Campbell
wrote in his diaries that, at the meeting on 31 October,
Adm
Boyce had
said that some inside the Army were irritated not to be more
involved.380
Mr Campbell
commented that Adm Boyce was “hard to read, sometimes giving
the
impression
none of them wanted anything to do with this, then at others giving
the
impression
they all wanted to be off to the front line”.
968.
In his
book, The New
Machiavelli,
Mr Powell wrote that Adm Boyce had told No.10
that the
Armed Forces wanted to participate on the ground at “division
strength with
their own
command”; and that it would damage morale if they were restricted
to a mere
supporting
role from sea and air while the Americans and others carried out
the ground
378
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, page 47.
379
Private
hearing, 6 May 2010, page 56.
380
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
381
Powell
J. The New
Machiavelli: How to wield power in the modern world. The
Bodley Head, 2010.
320