6.2 |
Military planning for the invasion, January to March
2003
640.
ACM Burridge
told the Inquiry that the “Republican Guard had been
planned
to form a
ring around Baghdad”. Saddam Hussein could also use weapons of
mass
destruction
and:
“…
irregular warfare … to try and draw us into urban
warfare.
“He had
developed the view … that western militaries don’t do urban
warfare.
He had
also developed the view that large numbers of civilian casualties –
he had
a Grozny
[Chechnya] vision in mind [unfinished sentence]
“The idea
that the world’s media would show this terrible destruction which,
in his
rather
warped perception, would put him on the moral high ground
…
“What we
didn’t know was to what extent he would front load those southern
cities,
Basra in
particular, and we subsequently recognised he put small elements of
the
Republican
Guard in amongst the Ba’ath militia the Al Quds and people such
as
that, to …
make them militarily more effective and … to put the frighteners on
the
51 Division
people who had effectively melted away, and they were coerced
into
getting
back into their equipment.”224
641.
ACM Burridge
also told the Inquiry:
“Be under
no illusion we believed that he did have tactical battlefield
weapons with
chemical or
biological tips. He had used them previously …
“So – but
what we did know was that this wasn’t the same as fighting through
the
central
front in Warsaw Pact days when the entire battle space would be
drenched
in chemical
agents. This was relatively limited. This was the sort of
capability that
normally
you would choose to manoeuvre around, rather than have to
consider
a complete
change of tactic …
“So – and
we were happy with the level of individual protection, and I take
from
that not
only suits, and it is well recorded that had some of the suits were
out
of their
perceived shelf life. They had to be tested and extended, and the
same
with
canisters, inoculation programmes and the taking of NAPS [nerve
agent
pre-treatment]
tablets. So we were clear what we were up against, and we
were
contented
that we could deal with that element of risk.”225
642.
A specially
convened Cabinet at 1600 on 17 March 2003 endorsed the
decision to
give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to leave Iraq and to ask
the
House of
Commons to endorse the use of military action against Iraq to
enforce
compliance,
if necessary.
224
Public
hearing, 8 December 2010, pages 38-39.
225
Public
hearing, 9 December 2009, pages 44-45.
489