The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
were to be
based were unlikely to be met in the near future. Despite the
warnings in
Lt Gen
McColl’s paper and his advice that “the time is right for the
consideration of the
substantive
issues”,24
the Chiefs
of Staff, chaired by Gen Walker, declined to engage in
a substantive
review of UK options.
89.
The Inquiry
recognises that the scale of the resources which the UK might
have
deployed to
deal with the issues was substantially less than the US could bring
to bear.
It is
possible that the UK may not have been able to make a real
difference, when the
key
strategic change that might have affected the outcome was the
deployment of a
much larger
force. But proper consideration ought to have been given to what
options
were
available, including for the deployment of additional personnel.
Mr Straw raised
the need
for such a debate with Mr Blair in October.
90.
The UK had
consistently resisted US requests to deploy additional personnel,
which
Lt Gen
McColl described as having “chipped away at the US/UK
relationship”,25
but
in
October it
was agreed that the Black Watch would be deployed to North Babil
for 30 days
to backfill
US forces needed for operations in Fallujah. Approximately
350 personnel
from 1st
Battalion, the Royal Highland Fusiliers were also deployed to Iraq
to provide
additional
security across MND(SE) during the election period in January and
February
2005. The
UK remained reluctant to commit any further forces in the longer
term: when
Dutch
forces withdrew from Muthanna province, the UK instead redeployed
forces from
elsewhere
in MND(SE) plus a small amount of additional logistic
support.
91.
In January
2005, Lt Gen Fry produced a thoughtful and realistic assessment of
the
prospects
for security in Iraq, observing that “we are not on track to
deliver the Steady
State
Criteria (SSC) before the UN mandate expires, or even shortly
thereafter”.26
He
judged that
“only additional military effort by the MNF-I [Multi-National Force
– Iraq] as
a whole”
might be able to get the campaign back on track. Lt Gen Fry
identified three
possible
courses of action for the UK: increasing the UK scale of effort,
maintaining the
status quo
or, if it were judged that the campaign was irretrievable,
accepting failure and
seeking to
mitigate UK liability.
92.
The Inquiry
endorses Lt Gen Fry’s assessment of the options open to the UK at
this
point and
considers that full and proper consideration should have been given
to each
option by
the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee (DOP).
93.
In his advice
to Mr Blair on 21 January, Gen Walker did not expose the
assessment
made by Lt
Gen Fry that only additional military effort by the MNF-I might be
able to get
the
campaign back on track.
94.
On 30 January,
elections for the Transitional National Assembly and
Provincial
Assemblies
took place across Iraq. Security arrangements involved 130,000
personnel
24
Minute
McColl to CDS and CJO, 26 September 2004, ‘Report 130 of 26 Sep
04’.
25
Report
McColl to CDS and CJO, 20 October 2004, ‘SBMR-I Hauldown Report –
Lt Gen McColl’.
26
Minute
DCDS(C) to APS 2/SofS [MOD], 11 January 2005, ‘Iraq 2005 – a UK MOD
perspective’.
486