6.5 |
Planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, January to
March 2003
548.
In his written
evidence to the Inquiry, Maj Gen Whitley explained:
“A ‘Rock
Drill’ is US parlance for a complete mission rehearsal which
assumes there
is a plan –
there was not. Instead this conference ranged across US
departments
describing
how they were going to rewrite children’s history books, form an
Iraqi
Fanny
Mae,235
what
training for personnel was needed for ORHA, what
weapons
they would
have and so on …
“I have no
idea if there were any UK objectives for the aftermath at all.
The
only US
articulation of an end state was ‘A country within current borders
with
a democratically
elected government’. The only direction I am aware of from
the
Prime
Minister was that ‘the behaviour of British Forces is to be
exemplary’. Both
inadequate
…
“The
appointment of Garner and the creation of ORHA provided very
clear
indications
that DoD would take control of the aftermath. This became very
clear
during the
Rock Drill during which the State Department was publicly sidelined
…
I …
repeated my misgivings but without any great belief there was
anything [the] UK
could do
even if it was prepared to get engaged …”236
549.
After the
Rock Drill, Mr Chilcott reported that the US military
envisaged
seven
sectors in post-conflict Iraq, while ORHA would organise into
three.
550.
Mr Chilcott
advised against accepting a likely US offer for the UK to head
an
ORHA
sector.
551.
Sectorisation
remained unresolved after the Rock Drill. Mr Chilcott set out
his
understanding
of the latest position on 24 February:
“Sectors
mean different things at different times in Phase IV. And the
military and
ORHA have
different sized sectors in mind …”237
552.
Mr Chilcott
explained that it was not yet possible to know how large the
UK
Division’s
AOR would be in Phase IVa, the stabilisation phase. In Phase IVb,
the
recovery
phase, CENTCOM planners envisaged Iraq being divided into seven
sectors,
each headed
by a two-star general. Whether a two-star general would have a
division
under his
command would depend on the availability of forces and the degree
of
difficulty
in maintaining stability:
“If there
is organised resistance to the Coalition’s presence, the number of
boots
needed on
the ground could considerably outstrip the Coalition’s ability to
provide
them. In
Belfast, a city of 750,000, during the troubles, some 250
terrorists kept
235
The US
Federal National Mortgage Association.
236
Statement,
25 January 2011, page 9.
237
Paper Iraq
Planning Unit, 24 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Phase IV:
Sectorisation’.
407