Examination of witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
WEDNESDAY 29 MARCH 2000
VICE-ADMIRAL
SIR ALAN
WEST and MR
RICHARD HATFIELD
340. You were a bit disturbed by that, Mr Hatfield?
(Mr Hatfield) No. I think your question is far more
precise, as I think the Admiral was just pointing out. That was
not the sort of thing that we were looking at.
341. Did not your intelligence tell you then
that, if it was not for that reason, why were they going to then
clear all the Albanians out of Kosovo? Did you think that was
the purpose of these men being there?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) No.
342. Even then you did not think that was the
aim of putting more troops in?
(Mr Hatfield) I think you need to be very clear about
your timings here.
343. When the bombing started.
(Mr Hatfield) When the bombing had started we saw
within a few days large numbers of people being moved out. It
does not matter what his move was meant for. We actually could
see it happening at that point. There was no debate.
344. You had not foreseen that?
(Mr Hatfield) We had not predicted that sort of movement,
which is actually what I suspect my Permanent Secretary was talking
about. As a particular type of act we had not predicted that huge
movement of people consciously, not refugees fleeing, outside
the borders of Kosovo.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) We knew that the VJ,
the Serbs, intended to conduct a major offensive operation against
the UCK starting March/April time. We knew that from intelligence.
Any extra forces they had, it was hardly surprising that they
were going to do that major offensive. That major offensive, if
it was anything like what we had seen the previous autumn, was
going to result in a large number of Kosovo Albanian deaths and
a huge displacement of people. We had seen 250,000 the previous
autumn. This was going to be worse. For example, we had seen Raak
and had seen how they responded to that. Every indication we had
was that there was going to be a major offensive, and when we
saw the Third Army being reinforced, when we saw the MUP being
reinforced, all of that fitted in with what we predicted, which
was a major Serb offensive against the UCK and KLA.
345. Bearing in mind that you had all this intelligence
information, what does your intelligence now tell you about when
did they decide that they would clear all these people out?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) I think that is very
difficult to pinpoint. In amongst the whole mass of intelligence
we had received we had had the odd piece of reporting, talking
about ***. We had seen the odd strands talking about perhaps ***.
We had bits of reporting like that, but we had counter bits of
reporting as well. The first time I ever saw any reporting like
that would have been probably ***. Whether there was anything
earlier than that I cannot remember.
346. You do not think then that there was any
real thought that if you pushed all these people into Macedonia
this would prevent or make it more difficult for NATO to attack
through Macedonia?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) We had no intelligence,
or intelligence that I would have said, "Right, this is what
he is positively going to do" that said that. I am now speculating
but one could argue that the worst possible thing you could do
was expel the entire population if you want to make 19 nations
refocus on staying together to fight. I am speculating rather
than saying, "Gosh, does this not achieve a lot in blocking
up Macedonia?" I had no intelligence that told me that there
was an intention to try and stop our operations by expelling the
Kosovo Albanian population.
347. It turned out to be a very good ploy, did
it not?
(Mr Hatfield) No.
348. You do not think so?
(Mr Hatfield) No. I think exactly the opposite. I
agree with what the Admiral says about whether you could have
speculated in advance. One of the major things he achieved by
expelling them out of the borders was to ensure that NATO hung
together and stuck it through.
349. Unless he did not know that it was going
to take us so long to get a land force together, and he thought
he would have to buy some time. When we started bombing his capital
I think he was pretty sure that he would have to do something
decisive to stop it, and he was not actually prepared to stop
it for several weeks, during which time he had expelled the best
part of a million people into the path of an advancing army.
(Mr Hatfield) We are just speculating about motives
here.
350. I am asking you if your intelligence told
you that.
(Mr Hatfield) We have answered that. We had no intelligence
to suggest that—
351. Subsequently you have not been able to
get anything out of Serbia which tells you what motivated that
move?
(Mr Hatfield) Not part from his general behaviour
and his racism.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) On the 9 April we were
exposed to a piece of information about a thing called Operation
Horseshoe and ***. We did not quite know what it was. Operation
Horseshoe was to do with clearing the Kosovo Albanians out of
Kosovo, so we know that there was that plan called Operation Horseshoe.
(Mr Hatfield) But we had no intelligence to suggest
at all, as far as I am aware, that his motive was to put refugees
in our way, none whatsoever.
Mr Cohen
352. Can I ask about the strategy, particularly
for the air campaign? Did Defence Intelligence do any detailed
work on the targeting strategy of that campaign? I am not talking
about necessarily individual targets. What assessment was made
of the range of targets which were likely to have the most important
political effect on the Serbian leadership?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Alan West) We did intelligence work
to start producing targets that would fit in with certain target
sets that were asked for by the operations people. There were
specifics that were seen as like enablers, ***, and my people
did work on looking at specific targets to assist in taking those
down. *** They were then given across to NATO to be taken as part
of the target plan.
353. I will come on to that. That is purely
though a military effect which you would expect in terms of defence
intelligence. Were you not asked to look at targeting strategy,
what would have the political effect that we would want?
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) We were not asked it
in those terms. We were asked really to look at things and everything
we looked at had to have an impact on its military capability.
We were not asked it in those terms. Now that does not mean that
there were not some people thinking about what levers do we pull
having looked at his psychological record, what things were likely
to have an impact on him, there were people doing that work. I
was not asked specifically to look at the targets of that type.
354. Okay, that is interesting. Now, the task
was given in the air campaign to the UK by NATO, how did that
interplay with defence intelligence, with the target impact?
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) As I say, what we did
was provide the targets we had come up with, they were given to
as I say NATO ***.
(Mr Hatfield) You must remember, the strategy was
quite rightly being run from NATO. We were contributing to it
and we were checking that we were comfortable but there were not
19 or even five nations trying to produce competing strategies.
355. Yes. What I am trying to elicit here is
you did your targets, you had your strategy, presumably you fed
them into NATO but maybe you got something completely different
back from NATO, is that the case?
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) No. What happened was
there was then a master target list, a great big long target list.
I am slightly straying beyond my area, this is really a J3 function.
This is an operations function run by DCDS(C) more than me. There
was a complete master target list produced. From that, target
packages were selected by SACEUR having spoken with the NAC and
then he selected the packages that were going to be taken. ***
356. I want to move on. You moved away from
that initial strategy which had been fed into NATO to support
the day to day targeting so the strategy was lost.
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) Yes. The DIS does not
produce a strategy really.
357. No.
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) We act to provide what
we are told to provide.
358. Yes.
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) We were providing that.
My people could come up with something and say ***. They were
looking at that sort of thing to help it out. The actual target
groups were decided, the NAC gave overall blocks of what the targets
were and there was a big target list produced within NATO by SACEUR
and his people, ***.
359. Okay. Now clearly there was an expectation
that the air campaign would only need to be a short one. Was that
the assessment of your defence intelligence?
(Vice Admiral Sir Alan West) It was interesting, ***.
I do not think we believed necessarily that would be the case.
Within the DIS I set up a structure so that my people could run
through to August in terms of turnover and things like that at
that higher rate. I think across the board, there were a lot of
people who were not convinced that would be the case but one hoped
it might be the case. It would be rather nice if that had happened.
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