The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1046.
PJHQ was
given responsibility for Phase IV planning. PJHQ
officials
advised
that:
•
If the UK
were to take on the first Phase IV AOR in southern Iraq, it
would
effectively
be “setting the standard” for the rest of Phase IV.
•
PJHQ would
need more support from other government departments if
there was
to be a joined-up approach to UK post-conflict
planning.
1047.
Section 6.2
describes how, from the end of December 2002, the focus of
UK
military
planning shifted from northern to southern Iraq.
1048.
On 30 December
2002, Adm Boyce issued the ‘CDS Planning and
Preparation
Directive
for Operation TELIC’,502
authorising
the military preparations needed for
Coalition
operations in Iraq.503
1049.
The Directive,
which included little material linked explicitly to the
post-conflict
phase of
operations (Phase IV), stated:
“Delivering
HMG’s declared end state is likely to require UK engagement in
follow-
on
operations but the possible scale and duration of ‘aftermath
operations’ are
uncertain
and are in urgent need of clarification from US planners at all
levels.”
1050.
Instructions
to Lt Gen Reith included:
•
to seek to
influence US planning, as directed by MOD; and
•
to prepare
plans for humanitarian assistance in theatre, should it
become
necessary.
1051.
Air Chief
Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger, Chief of Defence Logistics, was
instructed
to: “Be
prepared to sustain follow-on forces at up to the medium scale of
effort on land
and air,
and at small scale in the maritime environment for, initially, up
to six months.”
1052.
The Planning
and Preparation Directive was superseded by a first version of
the
Execute
Directive on 4 March 2003 (see Section 6.5).
1053.
On 5 January,
Brigadier Albert Whitley, who had been deployed as
Senior
British
Land Adviser (SBLA) to US Lieutenant General David McKiernan’s
Coalition
Forces Land
Component Command (CFLCC) HQ in Kuwait in early November
2002,504
prepared a
paper for PJHQ on “the imperatives for timely decision making for
the
commitment
of UK Land Forces” to the US Operational Plan.505
The paper
is described
in more
detail in Section 6.2.
502
Operation
TELIC was the codename for the involvement of UK Armed Forces in
the military campaign
to remove
the threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
503
Paper CDS,
30 December 2002, ‘CDS Planning and Preparation Directive for
Operation TELIC’.
504
Statement
Whitley, 25 January 2011, page 3.
505
Paper SBLA,
5 January 2003, ‘Decision Imperatives’.
290