The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
61.
The advantages
of three brigades operating in the South included:
•
A “more
balanced and robust formation, able to respond
independently
to changes
in the tactical situation”.
•
“Increased
military influence”.
•
“Reduction
in probable need for high intensity warfighting”.
•
Shorter and
less complex lines of communication (LoC) than concurrent
UK
operations
in the North and South.
•
A reduced
requirement for Combat Support (CS)/Combat Service
Support
(CSS).
•
Early
establishment of a discrete AOR and less demanding command
and
control.
•
The
“opportunity to exercise command” in a discrete southern
AOR.
•
UK forces
would no longer be “required to manoeuvre alongside
digitised
US
formations”.
•
It would
allow a “balanced transition to Phase IV”.
•
Less
demanding command and control and the UK would be unlikely
to
need to
call on UK resources from the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps
(ARRC)
Headquarters.
62.
The
disadvantages identified included:
•
There was
no detailed UK operational planning and more information
was
required on
threat and scale of tasks “eg Basra”.
•
The
timeline would be “very demanding” with “no margin for
error”.
•
16 Air
Assault Brigade was not yet included in the UOR
requests.
•
There would
be no time for many elements of the land force to
complete
in-theatre
training or integration prior to commitment to action. That
was
described
as challenging and carrying considerable risk, but it was
deemed
to be
“acceptable”.
63.
Adoption of
the southern option would mean:
“UK will
have made an early commitment to aftermath that will probably
demand
a
commitment for a number of years. This would be hard to avoid in
any event, and
engagement
in South offers significant advantages over possibly being fixed in
North
with
Kurds.”
64.
The paper did
not explicitly identify the risk of Shia unrest or Iran’s attitude
to
Coalition
Forces in southern Iraq.
396