6.3 |
Military equipment (pre-conflict)
forces – if
this were made necessary by a second crisis. We would not,
however,
expect both
deployments to involve war-fighting or to maintain them
simultaneously
for longer
than 6 months.”
57.
The MOD had
“analysed a set of plausible and realistic scenarios” to
assess
the demands
potentially faced by the UK overseas. That work had taken account
of
lessons
learned from operations, including in Afghanistan. The MOD
recognised that the
particular
scenarios it had envisaged might not be “replicated precisely in
real life”, but
they did
allow the MOD to “draw general conclusions about the capabilities
that may be
particularly
important”.
58.
By 2002, UK
forces had not yet acquired the equipment envisaged by the
SDR.
59.
Mr Hoon’s
evidence to the Inquiry suggested that the time needed to deliver
the
changes
envisaged by the SDR and the New
Chapter was
appreciated:
“[We] were
moving the emphasis of the Ministry of Defence away from the
kind
of static
territorial defence of the Cold War period to a much more flexible
…
expeditionary
capability. But that sounds quite straightforward to describe. It
actually
… requires
massive adjustments in capabilities.”23
60.
Asked if the
SDR had “worked itself through satisfactorily” by the time of
the
invasion,
Lord Walker, Chief of the Defence Staff from May 2003 to April 2006
said
“No.”24
Asked to
expand on that, Lord Walker stated that continuously operating
outside
the DPAs,
and a shortfall in funding, were key reasons.
61.
Air Chief
Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff
(Equipment
Capability)
(DCDS(EC)) from April 2002 to May 2003, told the Inquiry that
some
progress
towards delivering the capabilities to support this expeditionary
capability had
been made
by 2002 but the process was not complete: “We had moved some way,
but
we still
had a fair distance to go.”25
62.
Sir Kevin
Tebbit told the Inquiry that the SDR contained “big challenges for
the
Armed
Forces and there were such a large number of actions for
implementation for the
SDR that it
was inevitably going to take time to work through”.26
23
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, pages 124-125.
24
Public
hearing, 1 February 2010, page 40.
25
Public
hearing, 1 February 2010, page 3.
26
Private
hearing, 6 May 2010, page 44.
11