The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
904.
In
conversation with Dr Rice on 21 April, Sir Nigel Sheinwald
said:
“The Prime
Minister continued to believe, as he and the President had agreed
…
that time
was on our side and that we did not need to rush into new military
action,
while of
course accepting the need for the American forces to defend
themselves
properly …
targeted activity against extremists was one thing; another heavy
assault
would have
a major adverse impact, in Iraq and internationally … the Prime
Minister
was clear
that we should avoid precipitate action if possible and give time
for the
results to
emerge from the negotiations …
“I made
clear that the Prime Minister would want a discussion if there were
any
question of
the US tactics changing …”500
905.
In mid-April,
the US made a request for the UK to send additional troops to
Iraq.501
906.
The request
was made “informally, with no explanation of any underlying
rationale
or
assumptions” and proposed four packages of support, including the
deployment of an
HQ (for
which the main contender was the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps or
ARRC), which
together
might have totalled 10,000 additional troops.
907.
The US
proposal was that the UK should provide:
•
a Corps
headquarters, to command both MND(SE) and neighbouring
MND
Centre
South (MND(CS));
•
an armoured
infantry battlegroup to be available, for a few months, as a
mobile
reserve for
the whole of Iraq;
•
an
expansion of MND(SE) to backfill for the Spanish troops that had
been
withdrawn
from Iraq; and
•
an
expansion of the security resource focused on protecting the main
supply
routes.
908.
The first
advice sent by Mr Hoon’s Private Secretary to Mr Rycroft
was that the
request
needed to be examined “very carefully”. The only Corps-level
headquarters
available
to the UK was the ARRC, a NATO asset which would therefore require
NATO
agreement
to deploy “which is unlikely to be obtainable very rapidly or
easily”. The
advice
explained that:
“… we will
need to consider to what extent we would be increasing our
exposure
to the
consequences of future US actions in, for example, Fallujah, and to
what
extent if
at all we could expect to have any greater practical influence over
US
decision-making”.
500
Letter
Sheinwald to Adams, 21 April 2004, ‘Iraq: Conversation with US
National Security Adviser,
21
April’.
501
Letter
Baker to Rycroft, 21 April 2004, ‘Iraq: US approaches for
additional UK forces’.
354