Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-599)
MAJOR GENERAL
ROBIN BRIMS
CBE AND BRIGADIER
SHAUN COWLAM
MBE
25 JUNE 2003
Q580 Mr Cran: I wonder
if we can move on now to the legitimacy of the operation and public
opinion. Now I am not asking you whether you thought the war,
if that is what we are going to call it, was within international
law, and so on and so forth, that was the Attorney General that
told us that; but what is the case is that public opinion, in
this country, was not quite as solid as it might have been, there
were sections of the population that were outrightly antagonistic
to what was being undertaken. And, therefore, I think what the
Committee would like to hear from you is, was this a concern to
you two, in advance of the operation, that your troops knew this,
and did you feel that it would affect how they did their job?
And I think it is just worth adding that we too have spoken, of
course, to elements of those under your command, and it was something
certainly I detected was at the back of their minds. What did
you feel?
Major General Brims:
I was aware of it. We are blessed by people who are professional
people; they rightly think about these things. My own view is
that it is unthinkable that at my level I would have been given
an order that was not legal. I have utter confidence that I would
be given a legal order, it is quite well down the chain by the
time it gets to me, and I made that point to everybody under my
command. And I said "People can have a moral debate as well;
what we've got to do is, each of us, all of us have got to act
legally and morally at our level;" that meant that I had
to be legal in my plans and the orders that I gave to the divisional
commander, and a platoon or a tank crew would have to be legal
and moral in the way that they conducted the operations. And I
think we were all clear that that was the case, and we got on
with it; and I never detected amongst the troops anything other
than the highest level of determination and good morale. I think,
second-hand reporting, obviously, it was a difficult time for
the families, and I pay tribute to them for living through all
of it, particularly that, and they should help them come to terms
with it.
Q581 Mr Cran: Just
to play devil's advocate, just for two or three seconds, just
to see if I can get clear in my mind what it is you are saying.
I think, if I had been in your position, hearing what I have heard
from some of those who were under your command, where they were
taking this whole thing very seriously indeed, not the fact that
the operation did not have legitimacy at international law, but
the fact that the population back home, before the event, or sections
of the population, were not wholly in favour of what, in essence,
you were doing, that would have concerned me. And I think I might
have taken before the event the view that this might have an effect
on morale. Now you are operating with just a little bit of hindsight
here, and there is no harm in that, but I am just wondering and
pushing you a little bit more that, before the event, did it not
worry you?
Major General Brims:
Before the event, I was aware at various times what the opinion
polls said about public opinion. I do not wish to be arrogant,
but I was confident that, if British troops were asked to be employed,
the British public would support the British troops, and I am
delighted to say that was what happened, and we are privileged
to receive that support.
Q582 Mr Cran: And
just to finish this series of questions, was information freely
available to your troops and the elements of troops you commanded
that this debate was going on, even during the time you were there;
was information available?
Major General Brims:
If you were sitting in either the United Kingdom or Germany, which
is where they were based, yes; once you were forward in Iraq you
were pretty much starved of information, and anyone who arrived
fresh with a newspaper, one grabbed the newspaper. So one was
quite blind and one was working rather hard, and therefore you
were quite distanced from it, I think, if you were in Kuwait,
or during the combat in Iraq.
Q583 Mr Cran: That
is all very convincing and we will leave it there. Can I ask you
just one other question, about casualty reports being made public,
where I think it was the case, at least at some points, where
the units were identified before families knew about it; and you
can imagine what then happens, if you have a son attached to that
unit, casualties reported, worries occur: did this concern you?
Major General Brims:
I do not know what you are referring to, but if the casualty reporting
process does not work it would always be a major concern.
Q584 Mr Cran: It was
simply the manner; there was a point at which units were being
identified that there were casualties in those units, coming across
the airwaves, before, as I say, the families who had people fighting
in those units were informed. Were you aware of that, or not?
Major General Brims:
Do you mean, when you say coming across the airwaves, across on
the media?
Q585 Mr Cran: Yes.
Major General Brims:
I was not aware of it at the time. It is something which I have
become aware of afterwards, because at the time I did not get
any reporting, because, during the war, although we had embedded
media, I do not know what they reported, I do not know what was
transmitted in London or Germany at the time, I did not know.
And when there were problems I was confident that we had a good
system in place that would look after that so that we could get
on and conduct the operations, which was our principal focus.
Q586 Mr Cran: Well,
we must investigate whether that happened or not.
Major General Brims:
Yes. I do not know.
Q587 Mr Cran: I think
really what you are saying is you did not know at all, but, with
the benefit of hindsight, you would take the view that, if that
occurred, that really should not occur, for obvious reasons?
Major General Brims:
I am not quite 100% sure what you are talking about. If we, the
institution, the military, are getting our reporting wrong then
that must be corrected.
Q588 Mr Cran: I do
not think I am talking about the military's reporting. I am afraid
it is just one of these things that happened, but because the
media is all around us these days, for better or for worse, you
had these embedded journalists, and all the rest of it, this tended,
at one point, to happen. And I am just asking you, with the benefit
of hindsight, if it did happen, whether you have a view about
it?
Major General Brims:
The answer is, I do not know if it happened, for the reasons I
have explained earlier on, and I am not aware, nobody has ever
told me, that any of the embedded journalists reported other than
within the rules and regulations that we had agreed with them.
Mr Cran: Well,
by whatever means, it seems to have happened; but I think I am
not going to get much further.
Q589 Mr Jones: I must
say, General, it is like drawing teeth, frankly, this evidence
session.
Major General Brims:
I apologise.
Q590 Mr Jones: It
would be less painful, I think, if you were a little bit more
open. You say you were not aware of this, but we have spoken to
people that were under your command, and others, who were very
much aware of this because they were in contact with family back
home, and they were concerned not about the MoD's reporting of
it but the way the media were reporting losses, that obviously
then was raising anxiety amongst family back home. I do not know
whether you were in some sort of glass cocoon throughout this
thing but they were saying to us, quite clearly, that that was
a big stressful time for a lot of families because the media were
reporting losses and incidents that were happening without any,
I think, recourse to fact, in a lot of cases, and that was creating
a lot of anxiety amongst them. And these were people that you
were actually in charge of, and you were not aware of it?
Major General Brims:
If you are talking about what the media were reporting—
Mr Jones: Well
I think that was what Mr Cran was asking.
Q591 Mr Cran: I did
say that.
Major General Brims:
I thought you meant the military. If what the media were reporting,
as I said, the media reported an awful lot, that is a rather different
thing.
Q592 Mr Jones: We
have spoken to people, some under your command, who actually said,
for their families, for example, it was a very stressful time
for them, and obviously a very worrying time for them as well,
because, clearly, they were seeing press reports of casualties,
with no indication, for example, of what units, etc., and that
was causing problems. And, obviously, therefore, that was causing
a lot of stress, I think, to those individuals that were under
your command?
Major General Brims:
In that sense, I understand that; but if they report that there
have been casualties, our procedure is not to say who, what, where,
until the next of kin have been informed.
Q593 Mr Jones: General,
I am not trying to trip you up, I am just asking for an opinion,
that is all. Do not come at it that we are actually trying to
trip you up. All I am saying to you is that we have spoken to
people who are under your command, and clearly it was just their
families, and therefore it had a knock-on effect to some of those,
obviously not when they were in theatre because there was not
much contact?
Major General Brims:
But if an incident takes place and there have been casualties,
our procedure is, we say there have been casualties but we will
not release the names and we do not identify the units until such
time as we have informed the next of kin.
Mr Jones: And what were the rules that the embedded
journalists were working under, about reporting casualties, in
terms of units, and so on?
Q594 Mr Howarth: But
the problem was that the units were identified, so those of us,
like me, in Aldershot, with a large number of families, of course,
as soon as a casualty was reported in a particular unit, the names
of course were not revealed because the next of kin had to be
informed, and therefore the entire unit was in a state of understandable—
Major General Brims:
Yes, I understand. This is regrettable, but this is not a new
phenomenon. Once you know there have been casualties, we do not
release the names until the next of kin have been informed.
Q595 Mr Howarth: But
it is new, in this sense, and really this is what we are trying
to get at from you, you are the guy who was on the ground, you
were in charge of all the land component there, and you were having
to deal with something which was new, in this sense, that there
was a large number of embedded journalists, something like 700,
who were reporting back to all of us at home, and some of the
families were transfixed, they were watching the television 24
hours a day to see if they could identify their menfolk. And the
immediacy of it, in terms of what people were seeing here, was
new; and the question is whether this was having any impact on
you, as a commander in the field? Clearly, you were not here,
watching the television, you were trying to run the blessed war,
and could not be expected to know all this, but really what we
want to know is whether you, as a commander, have any views on
how the casualties were reported, so that you can impart to us
lessons, that we might learn and then promulgate to others, for
the conduct of a future campaign?
Major General Brims:
I take the point you make. It is very difficult, but obviously
we will look at the system and learn any lessons.
Q596 Mr Jones: Well
you were in charge. What we are asking is, and I am going to get
a hammer and chisel in a minute, we are asking for your opinions,
we are not trying to catch you out here, General. All we are asking
is, because we have had this raised by people under your command
and others who said it was a problem, how do we deal actually
with embedded journalists, what were, for example, the rules that
were laid down to the embedded journalists about, for example,
reporting the names of units that actually were involved in action?
Major General Brims:
They would be with their units.
Q597 Mr Jones: Were
they told that they could not report casualties, or what were
the actual rules?
Major General Brims:
I would have to check back on the individual cases, because, actually,
there were different—
Chairman: The bell
has gone; perhaps you could make some inquiries in the 20 minutes
before we come back. I am sorry, we have to depart.
Chairman: Sorry
about that. The reason we were rather later than we should have
been was we did not know if there would be a second vote, so having
rushed over to get back with you we had to wait a little while.
Right; military planning and the avoidance of civilian casualties,
then we will come back to yours, Kevan.
Q598 Mr Roy: Gentlemen,
the military campaign objectives, which were published by the
Government in March, which the Secretary of State had told us,
included as its first wider political objective to "demonstrate
to the Iraqi people that our quarrel is not with them and that
their security and well-being is our concern." And they heard
that time and time again. Could I ask you, after that statement,
and obviously that was going to be the policy, how did that affect
the way in which you went about your planning, and how did it
affect the way you fought the campaign?
Major General Brims:
The rules of engagement that were laid down upon us, which would
have come down from the Ministry of Defence, nationally, and also
there were coalition ones, so it was controlled there, it was
quite clear to me that the issue was the weapons of mass destruction
and the regime, we needed to get the regime's hands off the weapons
of mass destruction. We had no argument with the people of Iraq
and we had no argument with the Armed Forces of Iraq, but we would
need to defeat those who interfered with the coalition setting
about their business of getting the regime's hands off the weapons
of mass destruction. By defeat, I do not mean destroy, I mean
actually render them unable to interfere with us, and that was
very much the concept of operation; and during the whole planning
phase, do you remember, I talked about the parallel planning phase,
we were doing tactical and operational, and indeed strategic,
Secretary of State type comments, we did a lot of work to make
sure everyone really did understand that and was able to play
their full part in trying to conduct their particular part of
the operation.
Q599 Mr Roy: On the
balance of that, once the action had started, obviously, we saw
that the Iraqi forces were putting themselves in and around civilian
areas, they had people dressed as civilians; again, going back
to the quote, our argument was not with the Iraqi people, so what
kinds of problems did that cause, when it was apparent that this
was happening?
Major General Brims:
It caused some difficulty. I think the Iraqi Armed forces, those
in uniform, did less of that, except in the immediate surrounds
of Basra, than elsewhere they might have done. Most of the urban
people who fought us were irregulars, very often, i.e. they were
not in uniform; whether they were former members of the Armed
Forces, Fedayeen irregulars or other people, perhaps was not particularly
relevant, because they wore civilian clothes, but they fought
us like that and we had to fight them to the best of our ability,
without damaging, hurting, the ordinary civilian people in any
way.
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