Examination of Witness (Questions 340-359)
AIR MARSHAL
BRIAN BURRIDGE
CBE
11 JUNE 2003
Q340 Mr Howarth: I
am therefore suggesting to you that in the future the lesson is
that we are going to have to confine ourselves, on our own, acting
without a coalition, to an operation which does not strain our
logistics capability.
Air Marshal Burridge:
That is inevitable, but that does not particularly attenuate the
combat capability that we can deploy. I am just saying that if
you choose lines of communication of 600 miles through Turkey,
that is testing, testing for anybody.
Q341 Mr Howarth: It
is even more testing to go from Kuwait to Baghdad in one hop,
is it not?
Air Marshal Burridge:
No; no, it is not, that is not testing.
Q342 Mr Howarth: I
am sorry, I have lost the logic of that. Can you explain?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Because there are eight-lane highways which go from Basra to Baghdad.
Q343 Mr Howarth: So
it was the mountainous terrain.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes, the quality of the roads, the mountains, the weather.
Q344 Chairman: You
said the decision was taken in January to go south. If you could
drop us a note and tell us the exact date, it would be quite helpful.
How was it made? Who made the decision?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I can do that now. The decision came initially out of discussion
between the PJHQ and CENTCOM. Throughout that period at the end
of December people were assessing the likelihood of Turkey agreeing
to UK land forces going through Turkey. Given the circumstances,
people involved in planning recognised that making that assumption
was getting higher and higher risk and I think we all understand
the Turkish position and have no difficulty with it. To say we
should start planning now to go south emerged late December and
early January. The chiefs of staff took it at a meeting as a proposition
and endorsed it and the Secretary of State probably announced
it some time around 20 January, but it was that timescale.
Q345 Chairman: There
are reports that much equipment worked well, some equipment worked
less well. Could you give us a provisional assessment, obviously
not the definitive word but from your impression of what appeared
on one side of the line pretty well and what on the other side?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Necessarily big hand small map. Challenger 2 worked very well,
desertised and up-armoured. AS90 worked well. I suspect, when
you talk to General Brimms—and he will know and I will not—that
the degree of manoeuvre he required out of his artillery was probably
not huge, so maybe it was not under huge stress. SA80 worked well.
On the air side, the Tornado GR4 was magnificent, very flexible;
the Raptor pod, the new recce pod were superb. Storm Shadow, very
impressive. The enhanced Paveway 2 and 3 which we introduced on
the lessons learned on Kosovo were very impressive. The mine clearance
effort too was very impressive. On the negative side, what did
not work? I go back to CIS and the difficulties over the robustness
of our communication and information systems and the number that
we have to do stove-pipe jobs. I hope the defence information
infrastructure project will start to remove that.
Q346 Chairman: When
do you think the MOD will be in a position to give us a fairly
definitive assessment?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Through the lessons learned process that will take to the end
of the year, but I understand there is an intention to do some
first impressions towards the end of July.
Q347 Chairman: Were
you aware of some supplies not arriving in time for the start
of combat operations?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Which ones?
Q348 Chairman: I am
just wondering which ones you thought.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Ammunition.
Q349 Mr Howarth: Shall
we give you a list which has been put to some of us?
Air Marshal Burridge:
If you wish?
Q350 Mr Howarth: Body
armour. I was with the Royal Engineers last night and they were
saying combat clothing, desert clothing, was not there. If it
was there, it was just in time. Ceramics for flak jackets. What
are your comments on just the three?
Air Marshal Burridge:
It was when you said arrived in time. Actually I cannot say whether
it arrived in time. What I can say is that some stuff did not
get to units in time, which is really what matters.
Q351 Mr Howarth: That
is your asset tracking point.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes; indeed. It is asset tracking and priority in that the highest
priority was to get the ammunition in the right place. It is certainly
true that as far as desert clothing and things like that is concerned,
our planning assumptions do not hold in stock the level that we
needed for this operation. Contracts were let, most of that got
to theatre, clothing anyway, and was distributed or close to it
by the time combat started. I could not say the same about boots
because I noticed when I was in Basra on 23 April that there were
still some people without desert boots and they did subsequently
arrive. Ceramics? This is something that the audit of logistics
is going to have to show. We redistributed ceramic plates for
body armour from rear units to forward units to make sure that
those in harm's way did indeed have it. Why it did not arrive
in the first place, not all of that I suspect was coming out of
the logistic system: it may have been unit stocks and the lack
of tracking of those unit stocks. In other words, when they deployed,
our lack of ability to track precisely what was in each container
and where each container was may be at the root of that. I say
"may be" and that is what the logistic analysis will
have to show.
Q352 Mr Howarth: You
mentioned that some of the stuff which was supplied to the rear
parties, particularly to the medical services, was taken off them
and moved up to the front.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes.
Q353 Mr Howarth: I
have been told that people were having flak jackets taken off
them to go to the front when they were still under the threat
of Scud attacks. Without going into great detail, the question
really is whether this does not tell us that we need to do more
about our planning assumptions.
Air Marshal Burridge:
I could not agree more. I shall just enlarge on that. It is tempting
to say that whether you are wearing green combats or desert combats
does not alter your ability to function until the temperatures
go up. Where I believe this applies is in what we call the morale
component of fighting power. All of us have to have something
inside of us which makes us fight and this is all about esprit
de corps, it is all about traditions, it is all about badges,
it is all about those things which are the handrails in the steep
and scary places. I think that being equipped properly with what
might be relatively low technology stuff is important in that
moral component.
Q354 Chairman: One
of the more high salient items of procurement which are not immensely
complicated are army desert boots. I am not blaming you, but surely
the lessons of the last Gulf War and then Saif Sareea should have
indicated to somebody inside the Ministry of Defence the number
of feet requiring boots and sizes required. It seems truly absurd,
if you are fighting in the desert in hot weather, that boots did
not arrive in time. It was not like sending Tomahawk missiles.
It is a fairly simple process. You must have been attacked endlessly
by journalists for this delay and omission. Have you got to the
bottom of where the failure was?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I think the logistics organisation would say that we held the
stock appropriate for the planning assumptions and that additional
boots were ordered, in fact I know that is what they will say:
additional boots were ordered and were sent out. I was in Basra
on 23 April and people were still wearing black boots. Boots were
just arriving in theatre at that point and ultimately they were
distributed. It goes back to this asset tracking thing. It is
all very well getting stuff there quickly in extremis,
but unless you can actually track it carefully, it is difficult.
Q355 Mr Jones: I have
heard what you said about asset tracking, but we had a witness,
Paul Beaver, before us last week and he said the real problem
was just-in-time ordering which created the problem. He said that
there would be at least one soldier alive today if just-in-time
did not apply, that is Sergeant Roberts of the Royal Tank Regiment,
because his body armour had not arrived. The other issue he raised
was the lack of hand grenades and the problem with the Swiss Government
refusing an export licence for just-in-time delivery. Do you have
any comments to make on that?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I am not aware of that, no.
Q356 Mr Hancock: So
you did not know that the hand grenades could not come because
the Swiss Government would not release them.
Air Marshal Burridge:
No, I did not.
Q357 Mr Jones: What
about the comments on the just-in-time system and the comments
around Sergeant Roberts?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I am not aware that the inquiry has been published.
Q358 Mr Jones: That
was not the point he was making. What he was saying was that the
problem was not one of asset tracking. He was making suggestions
along two lines, one about the body armour and the second about
hand grenades. The problem is the fact that because of just in
time, that is not keeping stocks, in one case this led to this
individual dying who did not need to.
Air Marshal Burridge:
What I am saying is that I do not know the outcome of the inquiry
that says whether Sergeant Roberts was wearing body armour or
not.
Q359 Mr Jones: I do
not want your comment on that, but in terms of just in time, do
you have any thoughts?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes. If you adopt a just-in-time concept against planning assumptions
then you are introducing risk. If you believe that your planning
assumptions are less than robust, then that risk could be significant.
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