THIRTEENTH REPORT
The Defence Committee has agreed to the following
Report:—
INTRODUCTION
1. The patrolling of the no-fly zones over northern
and southern Iraq is one of the UK's major overseas defence commitments.
It is a humanitarian mission to protect ethnic and religious minorities
and neighbouring countries of these regions from the terror and
oppression exercised by Saddam Hussein and his regime. About 1,000
UK personnel are stationed in the Gulf region at an estimated
cost of £30 million in the last financial year.[8]
As a Committee, we have set ourselves the task of examining, over
the course of time, all the UK's defence commitments to ascertain
the extent to which they continue to be necessary, the cost of
fulfilling them and the degree to which our Service personnel
are properly supported in discharging these tasks.
2. We therefore set out in this brief inquiry to
examine the background to UK participation in the operations over
Iraq, the nature of the mission, and whether the resources applied
to it are sufficient. We have raised on numerous occasions in
this Parliament the risk of an imbalance between the requirements
placed on the Armed Forces and the resources they are given to
carry them out—and we examined the no-fly zones in this
light. In this report we begin by examining the background to
our presence in the Gulf since the war there in 1990-91. We go
on to look at the reasons given for our continuing presence and
whether these appear to be valid. Of the countries which formed
the original coalition which fought against Saddam Hussein in
the early 1990s, the UK is the only country outside the region
which recognises a continuing commitment to support the US on
these operations.
3. Since the operation is not a war, nor does it
fall easily into the category of peace support operations as currently
understood, we attempt to examine the criteria by which its success
can be judged and the degree to which it constitutes an open-ended
commitment. We seek to establish whether the UK will be able to
judge when its purpose has been achieved and forces can be withdrawn
from the operations.
4. To the extent that the task can be adequately
defined, we go on to examine whether it appears to be being done
well, and the extent to which we have the right equipment and
people in place to do it. We also examine the possible intangible
benefits of our participation in this operation, such as training
for the Armed Forces and the benefits to our diplomatic goals,
including that of the maintenance of regional stability. We seek
to establish what the major threats to this stability currently
are and what risks attach to its disintegration.
5. During the course of our inquiry we visited Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. We were able to meet the British forces,
mainly RAF personnel, deployed in all three countries on operations
to patrol the southern no-fly zone, and to discuss with them the
particular challenges of the mission. We are grateful to the host
countries for the welcome extended to us and for the opportunity
to discuss the wider regional security issues with their ministers
and chiefs of staff. We followed up our visit with oral evidence
on 19 April from the Secretary of State for Defence, and the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) has also supplied us with written evidence, which
we publish with this report.[9]
6. In considering the issues raised by our inquiry,
it should not be forgotten that our Forces in the Gulf risk their
lives every day. We pay tribute to the continuing professionalism
and commitment which they demonstrate.
8 HC Deb., 20 March 2000, cc 422w and 426w Back
9 See
Ev pp 20-32 Back
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