Examination of Witness (Questions 240-259)
AIR MARSHAL
BRIAN BURRIDGE
CBE
11 JUNE 2003
Q240 Mr Jones: So
we were just the nation who responded to the invitation sent to
other embassies. Is that what you are saying?
Air Marshal Burridge:
No; no. We started to participate early in June or July, something
like that, whereas later they invited other nations.
Q241 Mr Jones: To
whom were these invitations, which other nations?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I could not say off the top of my head, but it was quite a large
number.
Q242 Mr Cran: A supplementary,
just so I may understand this, because the question posed by Mr
Jones is a good one. Is the presumption that we are working under
this, that even supposing the United Nations had given its approval
and it became a UN operation, the fact of the matter is that the
Americans would still have contributed the bulk of the armed forces,
perhaps us, perhaps the French and so on. Is that the understanding
that we were all working under?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I am not sure we would say, if there had been a second UN resolution
that it would have become a UN operation. It would have become
a UN sanctioned operation or whatever.
Q243 Mr Cran: That
is what I meant.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Okay. The presumption was that the majority of the forces would
be American.
Mr Cran: Okay.
Then I understand your answers to Mr Jones. Thank you.
Q244 Mr Crausby: Were
all UK forces deployed under your command? I am thinking in particular
about Special Forces. Were there different arrangements for Special
Forces?
Air Marshal Burridge:
There were different arrangements for Special Forces. I had co-ordinating
authority for Special Forces, because command of Special Forces
is kept as high as possible because they are a strategic asset.
Q245 Mr Crausby: To
whom did they report?
Air Marshal Burridge:
The Chief of Defence Staff.
Q246 Mr Crausby: They
reported direct to the Chief of Defence Staff.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes.
Q247 Mr Crausby: How
did this operate? How did that work with the American Special
Forces?
Air Marshal Burridge:
They were integrated with the American Special Forces, tasks were
agreed beforehand and they got on and did it. None of this is
something that needs day to day very fine tuning or whatever in
terms of the relationship between forces and their senior commander.
Q248 Mr Crausby: What
do you think about this arrangement? Are there any lessons to
learn about this arrangement with Special Forces?
Air Marshal Burridge:
In this case it worked well. I have no reason to believe it would
not work well in the future. Much of the success of our command
arrangements is because we all know each other. All the UK commanders
have probably sat on the same courses together, certainly exercised
together. Perhaps one of the advantages of being small is that
you do know each other. Personal relationships are really the
glue which holds our command structure together and that was very
much the case with Special Forces. It was not a problem.
Q249 Syd Rapson: May
I thank you on two counts? One is that when I listened to you
on the television discussing issues around the conflict, I believed
every word you said and I could not do that with all the other
commentators. As a cynical person I was very grateful for that.
I trusted what you were saying as true and it proved to be the
case. Secondly, you were able to put down John Humphries on Radio
4 Today programme, which gave most of us politicians, certainly
me, great delight. Tom Baldwin of The Times in a Times
Online article compared your putting him down incident with
Private Pike. So alongside all the heavyweight stuff, we are very
grateful and take great delight in you doing that. I am sure it
was not intended, but that is how it came across.
Air Marshal Burridge:
You are very generous.
Q250 Syd Rapson: Your
influence is clearly substantial. Not in the planning, but in
the decision making, how influential was the British perspective?
We have been told that on the air tasking orders which the Americans
had, they at all times, when you were consulted, took your advice
and did not stray from that. What was the difference in the British
position on targeting and the American's? We have a view sometimes
that the Americans are a little bit trigger happy and that is
not true. I know it is unfair. When it comes to the British line,
and presumably yours, I assume—and I am sure most people
do—that there are very careful political considerations
and damage limitation considerations. Could you expand on that?
Air Marshal Burridge:
The approach to air targeting requires a certain amount of science
and a certain amount of judgment. The judgments come in the application
of the law on armed conflict and the Geneva Convention. In looking
at any target the first thing I would have to do is apply what
is known as a discrimination test: is this a military target?
Then a proportionality test: what is the appropriate level of
force to use against this target? That takes into account a number
of considerations, civilian casualties, damage to civilian property,
things which are glibly called collateral damage, but also the
almost cultural approach you want to take to a particular operation.
In this operation, we wanted very much to be using minimum force
so as to leave the infrastructure of Iraq and also the perception
of the people of Iraq in tact; so we only did the minimum we needed
to.
Q251 Syd Rapson: If
you were the sole arbiter of the targeting I can understand that
you are following that philosophy. Do I take it that the Americans
had already chosen a number of targets, had presumably gone through
this process, but decided to take them in, then you came along
and said, through the filter system, that they could do number
one, but not number two? What is the essential difference between
you and the Americans if you are using the Geneva Convention?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Because of those two things I have said so far and the third is
military advantage, that there must be a discernible military
advantage. The fourth is that you must take all feasible precautions
in making your judgments. Those are judgments. An American or
another Brit, might take a different view in applying those judgments.
In coming to my conclusions—and I shall answer your question
about how a target list is put together—I very much worked
on the basis that the world will judge us by our conduct in phase
3. Maybe because I am European, I had a different view sometimes
from the Americans. If we are attacking a target with a UK platform,
aircraft, then I have to approve it. It cannot be attacked unless
I or someone to whom I have delegated approve it. If we are attacking
a target using an American platform, but from a British facility,
Diego Garcia or Fairford, I have to approve it or someone to whom
I have delegated. That is quite formal, legalistic, everybody
understands that. Where I believe the interesting bit occurs—and
I think this is where we added considerable value—was in
saying yes, okay, this is an American target, American platform,
no British involvement, but actually let me just say how this
might look viewed in Paris, Berlin or wherever. As for creating
the target list, we use a methodology and, again, our embedded
staff in CENTAF, the air component, were deeply engaged in the
methodology we use called strategy to task. We ask ourselves what
the strategy is that we are applying. If we say, for example,
that the centre of gravity as far as Iraq is concerned is the
regime, then we will say our strategy is to disable the regime
command and control. We then produce an audit trail down to targets
which contribute to that Not, as people might think, just looking
at a big photograph of Iraq and saying that is a good target,
this looks quite good, that looks quite good. It is not like that.
It is built up in a logical way in order to achieve your strategy;
otherwise it would not be efficient for one thing.
Q252 Syd Rapson: May
I ask what might seem a simple question? I apologise for that
and it is not trying to catch you out. If the Americans were the
sole country involved in the war on Iraq and we were not there
to give our specific advice and you in particular had not given
those careful decisions over targeting, would you assume that
it would have been a much more widespread action and more collateral
damage and more destruction would have taken place without the
British influence?
Air Marshal Burridge:
No, I could not make that assumption. The US works within the
framework of the international community and the same comment
would come by another means ultimately. I am sure you are referring
to an article which appeared on the front of The Times
which I would not dignify with any evidence. No, I do not think
it would have made a huge difference, but they may have been slower
to pick up on the way things might look in the international community.
Q253 Chairman: How
influential were we really on American decision making? Did they
say, "Thank you for coming along. We need you politically,
but you are only providing 6% of the air assets so you get 6%
of the influence". Reassure us that we were not simply there
for the ride. Can you give us some examples of where you were
able to effect an influence on decisions?
Air Marshal Burridge:
We very definitely were not there for the ride. On the air side
we flew seven per cent of the sorties, but we provided a larger
proportion of precision guided munitions than did the Americans.
We provided niche capabilities on the air side that the US was
lacking in, particularly tactical recce. On the land side some
25% of the combat power was British. If you consider the line-up
of the land forces just before we crossed the start line, there
were 116 Challenger 2s there just in one brigade. Our brigades
are big and very powerful with a lot of combat power. That was
significant. They respected that; they respected that. As for
areas where we were able to exercise influence, we were able to
exercise influence on some of the targeting aspects, some of the
weapons selection and I am afraid I cannot go into details on
those two things in this forum. In the context of how we should
deal with urban warfare, the way in which we continually should
remember that the end state is not to lay waste to Iraq, it is
to get Iraq returned to a functioning country as quickly as possible.
Chairman: Perhaps
you could drop us a note in due course, when you can give more
consideration to your reply, because it is obviously quite sensitive.
It would be quite helpful if you could give us some further examples,
maybe in some greater detail. We will now ask some questions on
the preparation and planning.
Q254 Patrick Mercer:
We have touched on the planning of the war generally already.
During the planning and preparation phase there is obviously a
technological mismatch between British forces and American forces
which we are trying to narrow. How much did that influence the
British contribution to the planning process?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I shall see whether I can answer that in a particular way and
then you can tell me whether I have answered it. The technological
gap on the air side is very small indeed. The fact that we have
been operating in northern and southern watch, Operation Resinate
for 12 years alongside the Americans, the fact that we train together
on red flags and things, means that we are well integrated and
the technology gap is relatively small. I suppose the maritime
side was not really put to the test, but for the tasks envisaged,
if anything the technology gap was in the other direction because
for minesweeping, for example, we very much took the lead. We
had some great mine clearance technology. On the land side, provided
you use units of a reasonable size, that is a division, which
stands alone, then the need to join things up is less of a problem
than it would be if you used individual battalions or whatever.
Because we had a defined area, a defined force structure, it was
not actually a huge problem.
Q255 Patrick Mercer:
That begs another question which I shall not go into at the moment.
I am interested in the force structure there, because it was not
a cohesive division which was sent, but we will come onto that
later, if we may. The Pentagon referred to the campaign as one
of "shock and awe". What does the term mean?
Air Marshal Burridge:
"Shock and awe" is a term which I think was coined in
1996 and I cannot remember by whom. There are two air power gurus,
John Boyd and John Warden. One of them coined this term "shock
and awe". It is not a term which I actually recognise. You
may know that we planned and fought this campaign as an effects
based campaign and as I went through the task aspect of how we
do targeting, that was at the heart of it. Shock, yes, it is pretty
shocking, if you are a regime, when you lose your command and
control structure very quickly, because you feel absolutely alienated.
It is pretty awesome to be near any of these weapons.
Q256 Patrick Mercer:
Was it just a sound bite?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes, I think it was a sound bite which got rather regenerated
in Washington and it may work for the internal US audience, but
it was not very helpful elsewhere frankly.
Q257 Patrick Mercer:
Sitting back here a number of people were surprised when the war
started on the night of the fourth/fifth. There was a suggestion
that the programme had been moved forward somewhat. They were
talking about taking out targets of opportunity and decapitating
the regime and all these other phrases. How surprised by this
decapitation operation were you?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Not in the least.
Q258 Patrick Mercer:
Did it pose any particular problems for you about how you approached
either that operation, that discrete part of the operation, or
later parts of the operation?
Air Marshal Burridge:
No. As ever, as good campaign planners, we look at a number of
options which might present themselves and we had been planning
for such an eventuality for a number of days. I might say on timing
that we recognised that Saddam had expectations about how this
campaign would proceed based on his experience of previous campaigns.
The only way we could achieve tactical surprise was to do it a
different way.
Patrick Mercer:
Indeed we were witness to a bit of misinformation when we were
taking evidence at an earlier session which was extremely interesting.
Q259 Rachel Squire:
There is a saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Was the war plan significantly altered as the campaign progressed?
If so, when and how?
Air Marshal Burridge:
We modified the plan beforehand based on our experience of running
it through the war game. When it was executed, it ran as expected.
The only way it changed was that Baghdad itself fell in a rather
inelegant way without needing to engage in urban warfare, which
was the last part of the plan; that there would be a need to deploy
forces into Baghdad little piece by little piece and get this
jigsaw taken in an incremental way. In the event the 3rd Infantry
Division went into the centre of Baghdad and just stayed there.
Otherwise the plan ran.
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