6.2 |
Military planning for the invasion, January to March
2003
299.
Gen Reith told
the Inquiry he had also told Gen Franks that he was “unhappy
with
the way the
planning was going” because the US was “going into shock and awe”
and
the UK “had
been very much the custodians of ‘Let’s worry about Phase
IV’”.106
300.
Gen Reith said
he had made that point to Gen Franks because the US
were
going to
have a fairly extended air campaign followed by land entry as they
had done
in the 1991
Gulf Conflict. Gen Reith told the Inquiry he had said that “the
oilfields were
absolutely
essential” for Phase IV:
“… to
provide revenue for Iraq for its reconstruction, and therefore, we
needed to
secure the
oilfields rather than have them destroyed. I also made the point to
him
that the
more china that we broke, the more we would have to replace
afterwards.
So I left
him with those thoughts, and … between that meeting and
obviously
when we
went in, they changed the phasing of the plan so that there was an
early
land entry.”
301.
Major General
Peter Wall, Chief of Staff to Air Marshal Brian Burridge and
later
GOC 1 (UK)
Div from May 2003 to January 2005, wrote in his post-operation
report
that the HQ
1 (UK) Div plans team deployed to Kuwait on 19 January and
“became
embedded”
in the 1 MEF Operational Planning Team.107
The
remainder of the Command
Group,
including Maj Gen Brims, arrived a week later to review 1 MEF
options and start
developing
the Divisional plan.
302.
Maj Gen Brims
issued an initial Operational Order on 31 January, which
described
the
Division’s mission as “to defeat enemy forces, secure key oil
infrastructure and seize
Umm Qasr
port to prevent or mitigate environmental disaster and enable
humanitarian
operations.
Subsequently the Div is to relieve 1st [US] MarDiv … to support its
rapid
303.
The UK and
Australia participated in talks on post-conflict issues in
Washington
on 22
January. The briefing prepared for Mr Lee, the senior MOD member of
the
UK
delegation, included outline assumptions for UK force contributions
under four
post-conflict
phases. It cautioned that, in the absence of a US decision on
timelines,
these were
only illustrative.109
The
suggested UK land force contribution under each
phase was:
•
US military
administration (0-6 months): war-fighting forces (large
scale);
•
Coalition
administration (6-12 months): large scale reducing to
medium;
•
civil
administration (12-24 months): medium scale reducing to small;
and
•
full Iraqi
governance (24 months plus): small scale reducing to advisory
teams.
106
Private
hearing, 15 January 2010, pages 42-43.
107
Report Wall
to HQ 3 Cdo Bde, 6 October 2003, ‘Post Operation Report – Version 2
Operation Telic’.
108
Operational
Order 001/03, 31 January 2003, ‘Base OpO 001/03 for Op
TELIC’.
109
Minute
Sec(O)4 to DG Op Pol, 21 January 2003, ‘Visit to Washington – Iraq
Aftermath’.
429