6.3 | Military equipment (pre-conflict)

625. The impact on the UK’s ability to continue to conduct military operations

after the conflict phase of operations was never fully considered.

626. Lord Boyce told the Inquiry:

“The theoretical planning against the Defence Planning Assumptions is you don’t

do this sort of operation for an extended period longer than about six months.

But it never seemed to me very likely that we would be out [of] there [Iraq] in

six months.”341

627. Sir Kevin later said: “Our assumptions never involve more than six months at that

level.”342

628. With regard to large scale deployments, Gen Jackson stated:

“… the large scale concept, in land component terms we are talking around

30,000 or 25,000 certainly, the concept is you put in that large commitment on a

one-off basis and then you must downsize, because the Army cannot sustain a

deployment of 25,000 to 30,000 indefinitely.”343

629. The Inquiry was offered different perspectives on the degree to which

exceeding the Planning Assumptions had put a strain on the system that it was

not able to meet.

630. Lt Gen Fry told the Inquiry that:

“Over time the scale of ambition got larger and larger, so at the end of it we were

looking at something which involved a full deployed joint force with … land, air and

maritime forces, and in addition to that, special forces and logistic forces as well.”344

631. Asked if he had thought there was sufficient time to prepare the force for battle,

Lt Gen Fry stated that it was “a bit of a rush and there were inherent risks involved”.345

632. Gen Reith told the Inquiry that he was “quite happy” in terms of readiness and

training.346 He said that 7 Armoured Brigade had been selected because it was “the

most highly trained of all the armoured brigades”. In addition, 3 Commando Brigade and

16 Air Assault Brigade were both part of the Joint Rapid Reaction Force and, therefore,

“maintained a high standard of training and readiness on a permanent basis”.

341 Public hearing, 3 December 2009, page 101.

342 Private hearing, 6 May 2010, page 53.

343 Public hearing, 28 July 2010, page 42.

344 Public hearing, 16 December 2009, page 5.

345 Public hearing, 16 December 2009, page 40.

346 Private hearing, 15 January 2010, page 50.

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