The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

1. This Section addresses:

• the arrangements made to provide equipment to forces deploying for operations

in Iraq;

• difficulties in the provision of Combat Identification (Combat ID), ammunition,

Enhanced Combat Body Armour (ECBA), desert clothing, and equipment to

protect against a chemical or biological attack; and

• asset tracking.

2. This Section does not address:

• the UK’s military planning for the invasion of Iraq, which is addressed in Sections

6.1 and 6.2;

• the background to decisions made by the Treasury on equipment and Urgent

Operational Requirement (UOR) funding, which is described in Section 13.1;

and

• assessments of Iraq’s capabilities and intent. Intelligence assessments relevant

to military planning are addressed in Section 6.2 and the UK’s assessment of

Iraq’s WMD programmes in Sections 4.1 to 4.4.

• The decisions taken between mid-December 2002 and mid-January 2003 to increase

combat forces and bring forward the date on which UK forces might participate in

combat operations compressed the timescales available for preparation.

• The achievements made in preparing the forces in the time available were very

considerable, but the deployment of forces more quickly than anticipated in the

Defence Planning Assumptions meant that there were some serious equipment

shortfalls when conflict began.

• Those shortfalls were exacerbated by the lack of an effective asset tracking system,

a lesson from previous operations and exercises that the Ministry of Defence (MOD)

had identified but not adequately addressed.

• Ministers were not fully aware of the risks inherent in the decisions and the MOD and

Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) were not fully aware of the situation on the

ground during the conflict.

3. The Armed Forces’ capacity to deploy and sustain expeditionary operations

was determined by decisions in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR).

4. The SDR identified a major regional crisis, including in the Gulf, as the most

demanding scenario against which the UK should plan for military operations.

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