Examination of witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 8 DECEMBER 1999
Air Vice-Marshal JOE
FRENCH, Group Captain STEPHEN
LLOYD and Brigadier PHILIP
WILDMAN OBE
80. But the national intelligence cells which
were on the ground receiving that output were then able to give
the intelligence in whatever form seemed appropriate, made in
effect by the Americans to protect their sources to their allies,
so that they could use the intelligence. The lesson from this
then is that that information would not necessarily be available
if this was an operation where the Americans were not involved?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
81. They have a veto over the process?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
82. But if it was an operation of which the
United States disapproved?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
83. Then there is a problem for us and our European
allies, is there not?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
Mr Hancock
84. Could I then go back to my question that
I originally wanted to ask you, which was, what were the lessons
you learnt there?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) I think the major lesson
from an intelligence perspective—indeed, when we wrote to
you a month or so ago, it is a recognised deficiency (for want
of another word)—is this whole question of connectivity,
the ability to get, as you heard, almost near real-time imagery
intelligence now. We do not have the appropriate communications,
particularly in terms of bandwidth for imagery-type products which
they both use, actually to gain the maximum benefit from the intelligence
feeds. We are conscious of that and, indeed, within the short-term
programme that is being put together at the moment we have bid
for what we call the UK INTELWEB, intelligence web, to overcome
that deficiency. It will also mean our doctrine will change. Traditionally
we have considered, for instance, satellite as a strategic asset,
whereas UAVs at the other end of the spectrum is a tactical asset.
If we had better communications then we could do the process in
a very different way. The timeliness of the information and the
exchange and complementarity we talked of in the context of ASTOR
will change quite markedly.
85. Does that mean it is easier to make mistakes
then?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) I would not make that particular
deduction. Obviously the timeliness comes into this and it is
a matter of what time pressures you are under as to the process
you actually go through.
86. If you do not have the equipment to process
the data you are getting quickly enough, is that part of the reason
so many of the missions were aborted, because intelligence information
was interpreted far too late? The bomber crews leaving Germany
took two hours to get there and during the time they were in the
air the mission was called off because you did not have the means
to analyse what you were actually targeting?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) I think the sequence of
that conflates several things incorrectly. There may be several
factors that actually abort a particular mission. It could be
that the intelligence has changed on the way and it would have
been called off the target. It could be that the weather did not
allow them to drop their weapons. So the strands you put within
that question do not actually marry up.
87. Some of your pilots share very strong views
on the fact that they took off with one set of intelligence information
and arrived over the target with another set and then flew back
to Germany with an aborted mission?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) I would have to see the
specific example before being able to comment on that but in a
fast-changing picture and with the communications they have, the
fact that the intelligence was changed on the way does not particularly
surprise me.
88. Is your kit, Air Vice-Marshal, up to the
job?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) Which kit?
89. The kit you were operating with that enabled
you to take down imagery and then translate that into a target
in realistic time to enable the mission to be successful?
(Group Captain Lloyd) If I may come back to the Air
Vice-Marshal's original point, his point was on dissemination
of information from our process we are receiving the information
in an exceedingly fast manner, ***. The equipment that I now have,
remembering it is stage one of a two stage programme, is quite
capable and did produce intelligence. *** The difficulty was the
communications from, in essence, the point of production to the
customer. That is a defence problem for a large number of areas,
not just intelligence.
Mr Hancock
90. Were we, the United Kingdom, in any way
responsible for the targeting errors that related to the bombing
of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
91. ***
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
Mr Hancock: This is something that has
bothered me on the three or four occasions I have been to Kosovo.
I was there a few days after the ground forces went in and despite
what you tell us about the sophistication of the gathering of
assets why did you find it so difficult to find the Serb tanks?
More importantly, when you did find them how come you did not
hit quite as many? If you did hit as many as you claim you hit
where did they go to? They must have had some pretty efficient
scrap metal dealers dealing with these tanks that were hit because
when I was there we saw remarkably few.
Mr Brazier
92. We did not see any.
(Air Vice-Marshal French) I do not feel I can answer
the second and third parts of your questions in terms of numbers
that were actually hit. That is probably something you will cover
in latter sessions when you look at the Kosovo campaign. ***
Mr Hancock
93. What does that mean?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) In certain times of the
campaign we saw many tanks on the ground. JARIC, *** was given
tasks that did not specifically ask it to look for tanks.
94. We saw them but we did not tell anyone?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) ***
95. Were they targeted?
(Group Captain Lloyd) ***
96. We should not believe what we are told.
(Group Captain Lloyd) *** The Kosovo operation went,
in essence, for me through three stages. The first stage was to
monitor the national deployment of the Yugoslav forces. They deployed,
"a" la the textbook", as it were, as they had been
taught, on to the national perimeter and a ring of steel was put
around Kosovo. It was fully reported, in detail, that the equipment
was deployed into Kosovo and those forward positions.
97. That was accurate?
(Group Captain Lloyd) That was, as far as I understand,
accurate.
98. They were genuine tanks.
(Group Captain Lloyd) They were genuine tanks, at
that stage, genuine artillery pieces and so forth. There was no
doubt in the mind of my analyst what they were. We then moved
to a different nature of operation. The focus came upon, really,
the business of ethnic cleansing and refugees. *** We went through
the ethnic cleansing and monitoring what was going on there and
giving them feedback. *** Then we went to the area of bombardment
phase. There was a transition issue because some of those elements
were running together at the same time. We had to consider that
the person we were looking at was a well trained, sophisticated
individual who knew the skills of camouflaging, concealment and
deception well. He had a mountainous terrain, which was heavily
forested with a large number of tunnels in it. He basically exercised
the tactics we and our native allies would have exercised in Northern
Europe, of parking equipment in buildings and so on. There was
a heavy concerted effort going on. He moved the equipment regularly.
The equipment that we spotted was very little during this stage,
I have to be honest, very little equipment to be seen on the ground.
During that phase, yes, from time to time there was equipment
that was in doubt and there certainly was equipment that was reported
as dummies from out of my building in there. There was not a lot
of armour to be seen.
99. When your RAF colleague was telling the
world at the MoD that you destroyed two-thirds of all of the ground
armour of the Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, was that the knock-up
ones as opposed to the real ones?
(Air Vice-Marshal French) Without knowing his comments
in context I do not think I am able to answer that question.
Mr Hancock: You must be one of the few
people who did not hear him say that. I am sure you are well aware
of the inflated claims for hitting the armour. You must be aware
from looking at your own pictures after the land forces got there
that there were very few damaged tanks on the ground. You only
had to talk to the soldiers who walked up the road on that first
day who will tell you the biggest surprise they had was the lack
of collateral damage that they saw to the Yugoslav armed forces
machinery and when the Yugoslav army drove out of Kosovo they
drove out virtually intact; how can that be?
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