6.3 |
Military equipment (pre-conflict)
423.
Mr Blair
held a meeting to discuss the military plan and timetable with
Mr John
Prescott,
the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign
Secretary, Mr Hoon and
Adm Boyce
on 13 March.207
At the
meeting, Adm Boyce “assured the Prime Minister
that
the Armed
Forces faced no serious equipment problems”.208
424.
On
14 March, RAdm Style reported to Lord Bach
that:
•
178
equipment UOR business cases had now been approved at a cost of
“some
£494m”;
•
9 UORs had
been accepted into service over the previous week;
•
the
manufacturer of desert NBC suits had revealed that production for
the suits
could not
start “as early as we had hoped and will not deliver the first
items until
mid-April,
a delay of 2 weeks”;
•
the
delivery of RVD tickets to theatre had been delayed, and was
expected to be
complete by
19 March; and
•
while the
DLO was confident that sufficient ComboPens had been
delivered
to theatre,
this could not be confirmed until the re-allocation exercise
currently
under way
had been completed.209
425.
On desert
clothing, RAdm Style wrote:
“Sufficient
desert clothing for the entire force was ordered in Dec 02 with an
ISD of
31 March
03, with a small in-service reserve being available as a result of
3 Cdo Bde
and 16 Air
Asslt Bde personnel retaining their clothing from Op JACANA.
Although
pressed to
advance their production and delivery schedules, few contractors
have
been
successful … Across the desert clothing range, at least 70% of all
deliveries
are
complete and in theatre, broadly equivalent to 2 sets per man, not
counting
those
personnel already equipped before deployment. Providing contractor
delivery
profiles
are met, we expect all outstanding demands to reach depots by
19 March
and to be
with personnel by the end of the month. There are some
exceptions;
desert
helmet covers … and floppy hats … will not be delivered to depots
until
nearer the
end of the month.”
426.
Lt Gen
Reith provided Adm Boyce with an update on the redistribution
of NBC
equipment
in theatre on the same day.210
He wrote
that “sufficient” NBC Individual
Protective
Equipment had been deployed, but “some stocks required
redistribution to
ensure that
all personnel had their initial allocation of 3 suits”. The
redistribution of the
maritime
component was 100 percent complete, the land contingent 97 percent,
and the
air
contingent 70 percent complete.
207
Letter
Manning to Watkins, 14 March 2003, ‘Iraq: The Military
Plan’.
208
Minute
Rycroft to Watkins, 13 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Military
Planning’.
209
Minute
CM(SD) to PS/Minister(DP), 14 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Op TELIC
UORs’.
210
Minute
Reith to PSO/CDS, 14 March 2003, ‘Redistribution of NBC IPE
and Respirator Testing’.
67