Examination of witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH 2000
MR KEVIN
TEBBIT, GENERAL
SIR CHARLES
GUTHRIE, AIR
MARSHAL SIR
JOHN DAY
and MR SIMON
WEBB
Chairman
1. Welcome, gentlemen. This is our first public
session in our inquiry into lessons of Kosovo. There are other
committees, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Security, who are
mounting parallel inquiries so when one of your predecessors,
Sir Charles, talked of the media as the newly invented curse to
armies, I think parliamentary committees must be put in that category
as well. It might appear we have been rather tardy in mounting
an inquiry. It is now some 12 months since the first bomb was
dropped. Maybe that tardiness was largely due to the fact that
you had to learn the lessons before we could elicit from you what
the lessons were. This is our first formal evidence session. We
have already visited troops in theatre, last November. We took
evidence from the then Secretary of State on the morning before
the bombing campaign against Serbia began last year, and again
after the peace settlement. Almost exactly a year has passed since
the first bombs were dropped by NATO and it is now timely to ask
what we have learned from the first aggressive military in the
Alliance's 50 year history. We are seeking answers on a whole
variety of questions. How important and how successful was the
United Kingdom's military contribution to the Kosovo operation?
Did the Kosovo conflict reveal any deficiencies in the United
Kingdom's political/military capability, or in that of our European
allies, to respond to future crises of this sort? Was the military
strategy adopted by NATO to coerce the Serbian government into
compliance with UN resolutions soundly based and well chosen?
To what extent was the information campaign effectively integrated
into the overall strategy? Are NATO's political decision-making,
planning, command and control structures appropriate to undertaking
similar missions in the future? How can decision makers, particularly
in the MoD, best assess the military risks and benefits of any
future intervention of choice that might be contemplated
before committing the United Kingdom to military action? Has the
United Kingdom got the right intelligence support to enable well-founded
military advice to be given to the government on the military
risks and costs of such interventions in the future, and have
the right people got access to it at the right time? How might
military doctrine need to be adjusted to take account of the coercive
use of force, in particular in pursuit of humanitarian aims? What
are the implications of the decision to intervene in Kosovo for
the `concurrency' assumptions about the force structure planning
set out in the SDR in 1998? How much did the intervention cost?
What are its implications for the future of the defence budget
and, one might add, perhaps consequences for the three services
in the future? At this morning's session we have assembled a team
of witnesses from the MoD with whom we will examine the political/military
strategic context of the operation. Next week we will focus on
the conduct of the air campaign. Further sessions will be announced
in due course. The Committee hopes to report in the summer. That
is our agenda. Before we start, perhaps one of our witnesses would
like to make an introductory statement?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) Thank you very much
indeed. Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary, would like to say
a few words after I have done. I hope you will find these introductory
comments helpful. I will keep them short. Most of these points
echo the comments made by Lord Robertson in his account of the
crisis, which was published before his departure, to NATO last
October. I think this is a useful guide. Firstly, our success
in operations to date is largely, I am sure, due to the quality
and professionalism of the people in our armed forces and those
who support them. They are widely respected among our NATO allies
and our other partners in KFOR. As we consider our performance
in the air campaign, we should do so in the absolute clear knowledge
that NATO achieved its objectives. NATO conducted some 38,000
air sorties, some 10,500 of which were strike sorties over Serbia.
A mark of our success is that only two aircraft from NATO were
lost and that all the air crew were successfully recovered. This
may however be a useful juncture to underline the point which
has been made repeatedly by our ministers and by the Americans
at the highest level. While we would always seek to reduce the
risks to our pilots in air operations, we must never expect a
zero casualty conflict. That is unrealistic. In Kosovo we were
careful but we were also, I think, lucky. There has been a lot
of attention focussed on the amount of damage caused by NATO air
operations. We have provided you with some details in our written
answers to your questions. In assessing the success of the campaign,
however, the key point is that the damage we did was enough. Success
in this sort of operation can never be an arithmetical exercise.
You have asked us in the written questions for the military reasons
why Milosevic gave way. I think we must recognise that we may
never know what the decisive factor or factors were in Milosevic's
mind. The change in the Russian position, the threat of ground
forces and the continuing solidarity of the alliance all contributed
but I have no doubt that the damage caused by the air campaign
was undoubtedly important. We were pleased by the performance
of our crisis management machinery. In some senses, we had a head
start over some of our allies in the practice we had gained through
Operation Desert Fox. Kosovo proved that the Ministry of Defence's
procedures and structures worked well overall and that government
departments were able to work closely and effectively together.
As is the case after all operations, we have been learning lessons.
As you will appreciate, not all lessons learned can be implemented
straight away, particularly where there are resourcing implications.
We have however moved quickly to identify the key capability gaps
and we will seek to address these on an alliance and European-wide
front through the Nato Defence Capabilities Initiative and the
Helsinki Headline Goal, as well as nationally through the defence
programme. The following key capability gaps are those where we
consider that more needs to be done. It is important however to
emphasise that it will not be necessary for this country or any
other individual nation to deliver all these capabilities on its
own. What we want to achieve is an improved alliance and particularly
an enhanced European capability. We need an improved precision,
all-weather strike capability. We cannot just rely on Tomahawk
missiles in these conditions. Our laser guided and other systems
performed according to expectations and helped to make this an
exceedingly accurate campaign with a minimum of collateral damage,
building on our achievements in Desert Fox, but our flexibility
would be enhanced by a wider range of capabilities. Next, we need
strategic lift, ro-ros and a large, wide bodied aircraft. We need
secure interoperable communication systems for both air and ground
forces and more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
assets. Here, ASTOR will make a significant difference. We need
sufficient numbers of the scarce assets which act as key force
multipliers such as air to air refuelling, electronic warfare
and suppression of enemy air defence or SEAD. There are other
capability gaps you might like to talk to us about. We were pleased
with our ability to get significant numbers of forces into theatre
rapidly and to sustain them there. This vindicated the decisions
we made in the Strategic Defence Review and which we are still
implementing, but it is clear that some of our allies and partners
need to do better in this area. There have been problems since
the deployment, most notably with the Temporary Field Accommodation
project. Progress is being made but it is fair to say that we
have been disappointed by the time taken. The improved tentage
camp has been a great success so it is not all bad news. I hope
I have shown that we are being positive in learning from our experiences,
and that we are keen to address those capability gaps that have
emerged, but I would underline again that we do so from a starting
point that we were successful in achieving our objectives. Our
aim of course is to do even better next time. I hope, Mr Chairman,
that is a helpful background from me.
(Mr Tebbit) I would add two points to what the Chief
of Defence Staff has said. The first is about the way in which
this particular campaign underscored the importance of developments
which had been going on before then within the alliance and in
relation to the surrounding countries of the alliance. If anything
was needed to emphasise the importance of both strengthening European
capabilities within the alliance and of the wider partnership,
the Euro-Atlantic partnership, the Partnership for Peace with
the countries of eastern Europe, this was it. One of the important
dimensions of the whole operation was that NATO was not just dealing
with a problem which could cause instability for NATO members;
it was also dealing consciously with a problem which had grave
implications for the security of candidate members of the alliance,
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, in by then. The need to continue
to see European security in the wider context was completely underlined
by this event. The second point really is about media, public
information, the way in which these things are now conducted in
a dotcom world. We were dealing with press, public interest, the
media in real time. There has been a huge evolution since the
Vietnam war but this really underlined the point about the need
to be able to give clear, accurate information about what was
going on to people, not just out of public interest but as part
of sustaining the campaign itself in democratic society. Very
difficult, because we did not get the information first. Milosevic
usually had it first in terms of bombing information on the ground,
but very important to try to get it right. A huge effort was put
into this. We learned a lot of lessons and need to do more. The
MoD website, by the way, was accessed by nine million hits during
the Kosovo campaign, just as an example of the way in which this
has changed. We put quite a lot of effort into it in the United
Kingdom. That was why you saw defence, foreign and aid ministers
regularly appearing along with people like the CDS throughout
the campaign. Others learned that they had even further to go
than we did to get this right, including the alliance, but I think
the emphasis not on manipulation but on public information has
been really learned. For example, one of the main lessons we are
learning is how much more we have to do to have people available
to tell the news and the facts as quickly as they possibly can
and as accurately as can be achieved.
Chairman: History and tradition have
predetermined that Parliament does not insert itself into the
decision making process. What this Committee and other committees
will do if we have no direct role in the making of policy is to
ensure that those policies and decisions, once made, are made
as transparent as is possible, consistent with national security.
We have colleagues in the United States who are more probing than
we are. They have greater access to information. The information
they are provided with is spectacularly better than that which
we are provided with, despite improvements of late. We have here
a report to Congress and a classified Kosovo operation allied
force after action report, 31 January 2000, which is the yardstick
by which we will measure the Ministry of Defence. You know we
are not anti-defence; quite the reverse, and therefore we will
be remorseless, I hope, in our questioning and ruthless in our
questioning and polite, as we usually are. What we would expect
is truthfulness in replies. I have no anxieties about the desire
to be truthful, but it is in the British national interest and
that of our alliance that we learn all the lessons. This Committee
has conducted inquiries into previous wars. We have been varying
in our success in accessing information we require. I think we
will produce an excellent report and we hope that you will be
prepared, on occasion, to admit that not all of your decisions
were absolutely perfect. You will not be thought less of for having
admitted to the occasional mistake. In fact, that is a mark of
respect and I hope that it will not be a snow job in presentation
over this inquiry to this Committee, because we really have to
find out what are the lessons to be derived. Thank you for coming
and for the information you have provided so far. There will be
many further requests for information and we hope to publish early
in the summer. The first questions relate to planning and preparation
and I call on Mike Gapes to ask them.
Mr Gapes
2. The history of all this probably could have
been predicted. At the time the Dayton Agreement was adopted which
ended the civil war in Bosnia in December 1995, Kosovo was not
included in that agreement; yet there had been several years of
growing tensions and people were aware. People like Mr Rugova
had visited various countries to talk about what was happening
and so on. How soon after Dayton did you start thinking seriously
about the possible need to plan to deal with the crisis and to
prevent a crisis in Kosovo?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) Immediately after Dayton,
very much it was political and diplomatic initiatives that were
happening as opposed to military as far as Kosovo was concerned.
I would not like anyone to think that we were ignoring Kosovo.
We repeatedly pressed in the United Kingdom for Milosevic to engage
in dialogue with the Kosovar Albanians and to allow international
involvement in Kosovo. He consistently said no. He refused in
1993 to renew the CSCE long term mission there. He refused in
1996 an ECMM presence in Kosovo and the United Kingdom and other
embassies in Belgrade regularly visited Kosovo and told him what
we thought. By 1997, there were the first signs of radicalised
Albanian protests, including the emergence of what came to be
known as the KLA. The potential for crisis was clear and the United
Kingdom took the lead in proposing the contact group to address
Kosovo in autumn 1997. The Foreign Office Minister, Tony Lloyd,
put our concerns about Kosovo direct to Milosevic himself in October
1997. Then there was the North Atlantic Council and the ministerial
statement which expressed concern again in December 1997. It was
Milosevic's refusal to countenance international involvement or
to offer reasonable terms for a dialogue which radicalised the
Kosovar Albanians and led to the creation of the KLA. We had no
illusions about Milosevic, I do not think, but in the past under
pressure he had cooperated. Putting pressure on the Bosnian Serbs
before and at Dayton worked. We tried to make him adopt reasonable
policies on Kosovo. When it was clear he would not, NATO had to
act to prevent a humanitarian disaster. The indictment of the
International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia I think
made it clear that he is now the fundamental obstacle to Balkan
stability. I do not think we were slow. The Foreign Secretary
saw Milosevic in Belgrade within days of violence erupting on
5 March and he told him straight that what he was doing in Kosovo
was unacceptable. He insisted on the need for political solutions,
stressing that improvement between the EU and the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia was impossible without progress on Kosovo. The North
Atlantic Council issued a statement on the same day noting what
their concern was. Again, I think the United Kingdom took an initiative.
It called an early meeting of the contact group precisely because
we wanted to learn from the experiences of Bosnia and ensure a
united front from the outset. The United States signed up fully,
as did the Russians and our European partners, to the proposition
that we maintain a tough but balanced approach. We condemned the
Serbian repression but also called for an end to terrorist acts
and acts of provocation. Then came the time when Holbrooke and
Ambassador Hill from the United States began international attempts
to promote a dialogue and met and organised a meeting between
Milosevic and Rugova. We were kept very closely in touch by our
embassy. We then built up the pressure during the summer. We had
got a deal agreed by Milosevic with Holbrooke in October, signed
by NATO and OSCE representatives a few days later. The contact
group agreed to give priority to a political solution, but in
tandem NATO undertook a process of considering military responses
and, as early as March 1998, NATO had noted its interest in developments
in Kosovo, given the possible repercussions for stability in the
region. In June 1998, NATO Defence Ministers asked for planning
to examine a full range of options to respond to repression and
expulsions in Kosovo. That I think gave a strong, early signal
of NATO's willingness to act by military means if necessary were
the political track to fail. As the summer offensive developed,
the international community significantly stepped up the pressure
on Belgrade. In August, we had a full review of the range of ground
and air options and NATO's military authorities were authorised
to approach Allies and asked about forces available for operations
against the former Republic of Yugoslavia. We had four Royal Air
Force Jaguar Aircraft that took part in exercises to demonstrate
NATO's ability to project power rapidly. The international community's
demands on the parties, particularly on Belgrade, were set out
very clearly again in UNSCR 1199 which was on 23 September. Solana
announced the contingency planning for a full range of operations
was complete and allies agreed to prepare aircraft for operations.
In October, further aircraft were deployed and on 13 October NATO
agreed to issue activation orders for air operations. Readiness
to use force to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe was a crucial
ingredient in Holbrooke's ability to extract commitments from
Milosevic at the time, to limit force levels in Kosovo and to
halt repression. The decision to initiate air strikes was not
taken lightly. Most of this was done by diplomats and politicians
in the early stage. We had gone as far as we possibly could. I
remember very well this sense of sorrow when we all realised that
we were going to have to take military action. It is interesting
that during the time we were putting pressure on we were planning
for three Partnership for Peace exercises in the area; we were
planning for nine air operations, four others which had a mixture
of air and ground and four ground operations from the very simple
one, which was going in there unopposed, to implement an agreement
which unfortunately we could not do when we wanted to do it, and
the fourth option was a full invasion against the Serbs who were
fighting.
3. Can I take you back to 1997? I would be grateful
if we could concentrate on 1997. The meeting where Tony Lloyd,
the Minister, spoke to Milosevic in October that you mentioned:
did we at that time, did the allies at that time, have any credible
threat of force behind any diplomatic statements that were made?
You have referred to 1998. You have talked about Holbrooke's agreement,
which followed on a period of statements and preparations, and
Milosevic knew at that time that NATO was involved with various
things, but clearly in 1997, from what you said at least, you
did not mention it. Can you specifically deal with the point about
1997?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I cannot specifically
tell you.
(Mr Tebbit) I was in the Foreign Office then and we
were actively concerned about it. There was no threat of force
made at that stage against Milosevic. The first NATO involvement
in terms of grave concern and registering that was in the NAC
communique of December 1997.
4. That is after Tony Lloyd's meeting.
(Mr Tebbit) Yes. In other words, concern was mounting
through the second half of 1997 particularly. I have not got the
communique with me but that was the first time there was a strong
NATO statement of concern, watching with concern the events unfolding
etc. etc.
5. You referred to the Kosovo Liberation Army
or the insurgency that became the Kosovo Liberation Army starting
from 1997 a radicalised Albanian protest. That was the phrase
used. When in 1997 was that?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I cannot remember exactly
what date it was but we noticed in reporting telegrams that there
were more and more incidents starting pretty low and getting more
serious.
6. There was a response from the Serbian authorities
to that?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) Yes.
7. It has been suggested that the KLA came virtually
from nowhere and that suddenly a group of people were relatively
well armed, had uniforms and clearly had support from somewhere
to establish that. I have seen press reports that suggest that
the United States government was supplying, either directly or
indirectly, resources for that and, secondly, that Albanians living
in Switzerland in particular were funding it via various mechanisms
including, it has been alleged, drug smuggling as a means of financing
the operation. Would you like to tell us if you have any information
on the sources of where the KLA came from and where it got its
support?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I have no knowledge
of the United States arming and equipping the KLA. I saw, I suspect,
quite recently, the same articles as you are referring to. That
was news to me. How exactly they got funded I do not know. It
is quite possible that some were involved in drugs and criminal
activities. Some money undoubtedly came from well wishers but
I have nothing confirmatory to say.
8. We do not have any intelligence of our own?
(Mr Tebbit) We do not collect intelligence against
the United States. With the benefit of hindsight, it looks as
if the KLA was there as a nascent group that was being promoted
and encouraged throughout. That came across from the television
programme. I do not think it was like that at the time. When we
were looking at these things in 1997, there was a Rugova leadership
which was where everybody was going and promoting restraint on
both sides and encouraging Milosevic to reconfer the autonomy,
privileges and freedoms to Kosovars; at the same time, trying
to encourage the Kosovars themselves to behave reasonably and
responsibly and in a responsible political manner. This was a
fairly chaotic situation that was going on at that time and there
was not a thing which was as clear as the KLA. There were all
sorts of groups of concern and protest, students and the educational
stuff, but it was Rugova that we were trying to work through at
that stage, rather than the KLA.
9. You knew that these radicalised Albanian
protests were developing?
(Mr Tebbit) Yes, but not emerging clearly as the KLA
until the next year.
10. Did you predict this intensification of
the KLA insurgency in 1998 and the reaction from Milosevic to
it?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I do not think we could
have predicted it. We were certainly worried about it and we saw
the incidents growing.
11. The British Government as such did not have
a view that this would inevitably lead to further intensification
and potential problems of the kind that we subsequently saw?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I think that is right.
(Mr Tebbit) The Foreign Office memorandum[1]
has as much in it as we know, which they gave to the Foreign Affairs
Committee last year on the history of the crisis. I think they
set it out as clearly as we could from the MoD.
12. Sir Charles, you referred to various statements
and decisions made subsequently. At what stage were you, as the
Chief of Defence Staff, first formally asked to advise the Cabinet
or its committees on the options for military intervention in
the province?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I really started work
on the details of planning options in early 1998.
13. How early?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) In the spring.
14. Can you be more specific than that?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) I cannot remember exactly
what the date was.
15. Could you write to us?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) Yes, I certainly could
write to you.
Chairman
16. With the information?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I cannot remember a date
when we specifically started. I can remember two things but I
cannot remember the dates. One fact is I chaired a committee that
looked at operational tasking and we became concerned about the
situation in Kosovo at the back end of 1997/early 1998. I cannot
remember the date we upped our overview of this particular problem
but you seem to be blaming just the KLA. I am just worried that
you were, but there was no question in our mind of who was responsible
and it was just a rising tension that we perceived. What was cause
and what was effect was quite difficult. I would have thought
round about March 1998 I recall briefing the chiefs of staff and
ministers, but we can get you the date. I think it is in that
kind of area.
17. The problem we are facing is that there
is something of a gap between 1992 and 1998 when you began planning.
The Serbs had had severe losses in Slovenia, in Croatia and in
Bosnia and apparently, from what we have been told, the US in
their unclassified version is purporting to tell the US Congress
that we only really got wise to the fact that something might
go wrong in Kosovoit seemed patently obvious with the benefit
of hindsight and, I would have thought, with intelligence that
we should have been doing the planning much earlier. What we are
trying to get at within the limits of what you are able to tell
us in public is when were you first advised, "The time is
coming when we have to work out what we are going to bomb, what
forces we require, where they need to go in, where they are going
to liaise with our allies"? I simply cannot believe that
the alarm bells started ringing in 1997 and 1998. Either you were
deceived; you were not given information, or parliamentarians
are not getting information. When did you seriously?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) We started seriously
planning in early summer 1998. The indications were that trouble
was brewing but I would not put it at much more than that. It
got much worse because Milosevic started behaving in a much worse
way. Every intention was that the political/diplomatic problems
could probably be sorted out. It was not until the summer of 1998
when people said, "This may well come to military operations"
and that is when we got planning.
18. What is the difference between planning
and serious planning, General? We are almost getting back into
Mottram territory in plain language. I would like to know, in
military terms, what is serious military planning and what is
military planning?
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) The officers who were
doing it were taking it very seriously because they had to show
Air Marshal Day and myself their work regularly. They came forward
having discussed it with the Foreign Office and other interested
people like the Permanent Joint Head Quarters and NATO, though
I think we were ahead of NATO and it was not until later that
they really got planning. We planned on the air in 1998.
19. There was this vacuum between 1991-92 and
1998. We spent a lot of money on people in planning and in the
intelligence services, including inside the Ministry of Defence,
and it does seem rather strange to me that, despite the resources
we expend and that were expended by our allies, although not intelligence
inside NATO, it took until 1998 before we started seriously working
out what we might have to do if the Serbs did what they had already
done on three separate occasions, when it was almost inevitably
that Kosovo or Montenegro was going to be next on the list.
(General Sir Charles Guthrie) With respect, it is
easy to say it was almost inevitable now. I do not think it appeared
almost inevitable in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
1 Note by witness: a memorandum prepared in
co-operation with the MoD, and provided also to the HCDC. Back
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