The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
453.
Estimates of
potential UK casualties from a ground campaign, excluding
Special
Forces
casualties and casualties incurred through fighting in urban areas,
were between
30 and 60
individuals killed and between 120 and 200 individuals
wounded.
454.
The total
Iraqi land battle casualties were assessed as “in the order of
500-1,200
killed and
2,000-4,800 wounded”. Detailed assessments of likely casualties
from the air
campaign,
including civilian casualties, could only be made on a
“target-by-target” basis
and this
work was “in hand”. The MOD stated:
“Iraqi
civilian casualties from anything other than the air campaign are
likely to be
relatively
few, unless Coalition Forces become engaged in fighting in urban
areas.”
455.
The MOD
estimates were based on assumptions that:
•
Iraqi
forces would not suffer a rapid, total collapse at the start of the
campaign;
•
the
campaign would last 30 days; and
•
the US and
UK operational plans did not change in any significant
way.
On 15
January, Mr Hoon had asked for work on predicting Saddam Hussein’s
possible
responses
to military action to be taken forward in the context of a
comprehensive
“red
teaming” of the military plan to identify all conceivable risks to
its success.
The “Red
Team” was established within the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS)
and was led
by Major
General Andrew Ridgway, the Chief of Defence Intelligence
(designate).160
Its purpose
was:
“… to
provide COS [Chiefs of Staff] and key planners within the MOD and
Whitehall
with an
independent view of current intelligence assumptions and key
judgements,
to
challenge if appropriate and to identify areas where more work may
be required.”
Papers were
copied to the Chiefs of Staff, PJHQ, the MOD, the FCO, the IPU and
the JIC.
There is no
evidence that they were seen in No.10.
The first
Red Team report was issued on 28 February.161
Its key
judgements drew heavily
on earlier
JIC Assessments and included:
•
the need for
Coalition Forces to assume immediate responsibility for law
and
order to
avoid other forces stepping into an internal security
vacuum;
•
that most
Iraqis would initially view the Coalition as a liberating force,
but support
was likely
to erode rapidly if the interim administration was not acceptable
to the
population
and it could not see a road map towards a pluralist,
representative
Iraqi-led
administration; and
160
Minute MOD
[junior official] to APS2/SofS [MOD], 25 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Red
Teaming in the DIS’.
161
Minute
PS/CDI to APS2/SofS [MOD], 28 February 2003, ‘Iraq Red Team –
Regional Responses to
Conflict in
Iraq and the Aftermath’ attaching Paper, DIS Red Team, ‘Regional
Responses to Conflict in Iraq
and the
Aftermath’.
456