6.3 |
Military equipment (pre-conflict)
525.
On
6 June, Mr Flaherty provided advice on the supply and
delivery of NBC
equipment
to Lord Bach.267
He
stated:
“Although
the UOR system did produce some NBC equipment, the issues in
this
case relate
more to the proper maintenance of existing stocks and the ability
of our
systems to
cope with the delivery of very large surge requirements to
personnel who
are
unfamiliar with the equipment in question, and may not easily be
able to track its
onward
movement.
“Although
commanders will – rightly – place their priority on the out-load
and delivery
of
battle-winning capability, and although the perceived NBC threat
diminished with
the
collapse of the regime, there were occasions when our personnel
perceived they
were at
high risk, due to the lack of NBC equipment.”
526.
On NBC suits,
Mr Flaherty wrote that:
“There were
initially insufficient NBC suits in theatre to supply all personnel
with
three each
at the outset of hostilities. In order to ensure all personnel had
two suits
each …
suits were re-distributed … An additional 96,000 suits arrived from
the UK
on
19 March meaning there were sufficient suits in theatre to
supply all personnel
with four
each. However due to a mismatch between the sizes of the suits
and
individuals
a small number of troops crossed the Line of Departure with only
one
properly
fitting suit …
“Commanders
assessed that the risk posed to the Force by these shortages was
low
… The
effect on morale was judged to be more serious than the practical
impact.”
527.
Mr Flaherty
wrote that in order to alleviate shortages in NBC detectors,
equipment
held by 3
Commando Brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade was redistributed,
leaving
them with
“less than 50% of the required capability”. All available NBC
detection
equipment,
ancillaries and consumables were then flown out, “giving theatre a
50%
capability
by 13 March”.
528.
Mr Flaherty
stated: “The shortage of NBC detection was assessed to pose a
high
risk to UK
troops.” This was “not fundamentally a ‘UOR’ issue but one of
maintenance
and supply
of in-service equipment” exacerbated by the delayed in-service
introduction
of a new
form of equipment.
529.
There had also
been a shortage of batteries for the NBC detection sets and
for
their
remote alarms, “aggravated by the fact that some NAIAD arrived from
stores
without
batteries or batteries for the remote”. Commanders had assessed
that this
shortage
“posed a high risk to UK Forces”; 1 (UK) Div had been ordered to
turn off NBC
detectors
while in dispersal areas to preserve the batteries and to “only
turn them back
on if there
were signs of an attack”.
267
Minute PJHQ
J9 to PS/Minister(DP), 6 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Op TELIC
UORs’.
85