Oral evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee on Wednesday 25 June 2003

Members present:

Mr Bruce George, in the Chair
Mr James Cran
Mr Gerald Howarth
Mr Kevan Jones
Jim Knight
Patrick Mercer
Mr Frank Roy
Rachel Squire

__________

Witnesses: MAJOR GENERAL ROBIN BRIMS CBE, UK Land Component Commander, Operation Telic; BRIGADIER SHAUN COWLAM MBE, Commander, 102 Logistics Brigade; examined.

Q511  Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. Major General, the last time we met, I think, you were in your Lawrence of Arabia kit, in a tent in the desert, so I did not quite recognise you when you came in. We are deep into our inquiry into Lessons of Iraq, and really look forward to what you are both going to say. The first question looks almost like a question on an examination paper, forgive me. Can you both explain to the Committee your role in Operation Telic and the composition of your respective commands? It would be helpful, subsequent to this meeting, if you could draw us perhaps an organisation chart, or send us any relevant documentation, because probably it would be easier to send than to run through verbally, but if you would not mind having a crack at the question? Thank you.

Major General Brims: I commanded 1 (UK) Armoured Division, which was made up of 3 Commando Brigade, 7 Armoured Brigade, 16 Air Assault Brigade and divisional troops. Brigadier Cowlam commanded the joint force Logistic Component, which had some of our Land Component logistic support embedded in it, so there was quite a close relationship. Nationally, I was the Land Force Component Commander, and nationally I reported to the National Contingent Command Headquarters, commanded by Air Marshal Burridge. Operationally, I was embedded in the 1st US Marine Expeditionary Force, the equivalent of a corps, and therefore I was commanding one of the divisions within that US corps. That US corps was commanded by the Land Component Commander, General McKiernan, and his Land Coalition Component consisted of two corps, the MEF, the one I was embedded in, and 5 Corps. So, although nationally I was a Land Component Commander, in military speak I was about a two-down tactical commander, which makes me slightly different from the UK Maritime and the UK Air Components.

Q512  Chairman: Would that have been a sort of 'bog standard' structure, or was there anything peculiar about it, in the light of the war and the number of countries that were participating in the activity?

Major General Brims: No, not really. I can think of one peculiarity, if that is right, that I would point out. In the US Marine Corps, in 1 MEF, they had their own Air Wing, a tactical air wing, which supported the whole Corps, including 1 (UK) Armoured Division, and that was quite a unique experience. It is a very big organisation, but because we had that it meant that we did not take as much of our own artillery as otherwise we might have taken, we did not, for example, take MLRS, the multi-launch rocket systems.

Q513  Chairman: Upon mature reflection, was there anything organisationally that might have been done differently, or was the structure that you were given the one you think will be useful for any similar activity?

Major General Brims: It was a very useful structure for what we did in this operation. I would have absolutely no complaints about the structure or the people with whom and around whom I worked.

Q514  Chairman: And I would not have expected you to say anything different.

Major General Brims: I have said it publicly before, I thought the British troops were wonderful, magnificent; but also I say that the US troops, from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force with whom we worked, were great people.

Q515  Chairman: In the last Gulf war, it was pretty obvious that we wanted to work alongside the US Army, because of NATO experience, but, from what we have heard of the last conflict, it would appear there is more symmetry now between ourselves and the US Marine Corps?

Major General Brims: I cannot comment because I was not in the last Gulf war and I worked with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force only on this operation; but it was a privilege to work with people. Of all the Commanders around me, there was nobody with a big ego, everybody co-operated, we got on really well, everybody gave of their very best and co-operated in the most magnificent way.

Q516  Chairman: Thank you. Brigadier; same question?

Brigadier Cowlam: I was Commander of the Joint Forces Logistic Component, which was a Joint Component, primarily, the majority was made up of Army units and a large proportion of that was 102 Logistics Brigade, which I commanded, in peacetime, in Germany. It was an organisation of about 7,500 people, 19 major units, predominantly Army but with some Navy and Air Force elements, a joint staff, with the Headquarters Signal Squadron, and support, about 200 people, about 65 per cent Army, 25 per cent Air Force and about 10 per cent Navy. And our role was to receive, stage and onward move all three components as they came into theatre, then to sustain them and conduct other operations as required. As the General said, we were very closely allied to the Land Component, we provided the Land Component 3rd Line Logistics piece, and for that we used most of 102 Logistics Brigade.

Q517  Chairman: Thank you. Again, a chart would be very helpful. Having discussed the structure, perhaps a follow-up to that, General. How did the command chain function between you and a 3* UK National Contingent Commander in Qatar, on the one hand, and your tactical commander, as you mentioned, an American 3*, in theatre?

Major General Brims: Nationally, I reported to National Component Headquarters in Qatar, and the operational orders I got were done through the coalition chain of command, and the conduct of operations was all done by that. In the planning phase, I was keeping the National Contingent Command Headquarters informed all the way through, and if there had been any difficulties, if I had perceived that something was contrary to the UK's legal interests, I would have raised it through the National Contingent Headquarters; actually, I never had to do that. In the planning phase, not only did we have the National Contingent Headquarters above us, but it sat alongside the US Central Command forward in Qatar, which ran the overall operation, and therefore it was a two-way flow of information, which I got down the national chain of command, and down the coalition chain of command; and we had embedded liaison teams in the Corps Headquarters of MEF, and in the coalition Land Component Headquarters, General McKiernan's, we had British officers in there. So I was very well-informed, and views on the planning and views on concepts were well aired and we were able to do parallel planning, parallel in the sense of I could be planning at tactical level while others were planning at the operational level at the same time, concurrently, which was excellent.

Q518  Chairman: Thank you. Brigadier, since Air Marshal Burridge was responsible for the sustainment of all British forces, did you report to him through 1 (UK) Division or direct to Qatar?

Brigadier Cowlam: No, I reported direct. Unlike the Land, the Air and the Maritime components, who were embedded within the coalition components, Logistics was a national responsibility and so I reported directly to Air Marshal Burridge. Quite clearly, at staff level, I was speaking to PJHQ, and indeed to Land, Fleet and Strike, almost daily, but my chain of command was very clear, straight to Qatar and the Air Marshal and his staff.

Q519  Chairman: But what if you wanted to borrow things from the Americans; there must have been an occasion?

Brigadier Cowlam: At theatre level, we aligned to 377 Theatre Support Command; tactically, with the Land component, we were aligned to 1 MEF and the Marine Logistic Command, and therefore I had links. And indeed for the early part of the campaign I was co-located with 377 Theatre Support Command, we had embedded staff in their Headquarters although we were not under their command, and so the level of co-operation was very close, and we did help each other out, constantly. And a similar arrangement happened with the Marine Logistics Command, further forward.

Q520  Chairman: And do you think you learned anything from the way in which they are organised? I am sure we will come on to this later.

Brigadier Cowlam: A massive amount, in terms of the scale on which they operate and some of the technologies that they have available, but also some of the problems that they suffer; so I think at all levels we learned a tremendous amount. And, to echo what the General said, the personal relationships were outstanding, we were literally living together. I shared a room with the Commander of the Marine Logistics Command, and at a personal level the interaction, liaison, co-operation, were outstanding.

Q521  Chairman: I am sure we will come back to that. And a follow-up to that, how did 3 Commando Brigade's logistic structure fit into your responsibilities?

Brigadier Cowlam: Three Commando Brigade, once they came on shore as an integral part of 1 (UK) Armoured Division, the responsibility for sustaining them switched to me; but, clearly, the Amphibious Task Group stores on the RFAs were made available. And, indeed, in the early stages of the campaign, because 3 Brigade were there early, we managed to use some of their stocks to support some of 1 Div's training before a lot of the equipment and the ammunition arrived. And so they were a very positive addition and an early capability that we were able to make use of.

Q522  Mr Howarth: It sounds, from what you say, General, that things worked extremely well, in terms of the relationship between you and Air Marshal Burridge and your American counterparts. Were there any occasions on which you were ever in direct contact with the Chief of Joint Operations here, or with the Chief of the Defence Staff here, or, indeed, dare I say it, even Ministers?

Major General Brims: No; only when they came forward and visited. There was a period, at the end of January, early February, that Headquarters 1 Division was forward and we were sort of, as it were, pulling forward our Division to do their training, but we were planning alongside the Americans, so there was a period I deployed, towards the end of January, when there was not a National Contingent Headquarters, so we reported to the Permanent Joint Headquarters here in the UK. But by, I think it was, some time around the second week in February, with the NCC Headquarters, then we reported through them; and I did not, other than when they visited forward, communicate upwards through the NCC.

Q523  Mr Howarth: It sounds like altogether rather a successful relationship was forged?

Major General Brims: I have to say that it was a privilege, because throughout the combat phase of the war I was given complete freedom by the coalition and the national chains of command to conduct operations in the way that we, in 1 Div, thought was best. I know that is what the doctrine says, but history tells me I was extremely lucky.

Q524  Mr Jones: You have talked obviously about the close working relationship with the Americans. We understand that some American units were under British tactical command in your sector. Could you explain actually how that worked in practice, and have any lessons been learned for the future?

Major General Brims: There was one Marine Expeditionary Unit which was embedded in 3 Commando Brigade. When the decision was made that 1 Div would come in the south, in early January, ahead of that, the decision that 3 Commando Brigade would do the operation as much as it did on the al Faw peninsula, and, at that stage, in order to bolster up the size of 3 Commando Brigade, because it was actually only with two Commandos, the Americans had put a third Commando into it, which they call a Marine Expeditionary Unit, and it came as quite a powerful organisation, and that was fixed ahead of me, as it were, taking command of 3 Commando Brigade. It then stayed in that state of command for about the first two or three days, because once we had done the initial landings in the al Faw then they went back to operate with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. They did quite well.

Q525  Mr Jones: And how did that work, in terms of command?

Major General Brims: The Commanding Officer of the Marine Expeditionary Unit would report to the 3 (UK) Commando Brigade, 3 (UK) Commando Brigade reported to me, and I reported to the MEF; although, clearly, the American would report directly to an American on a national basis, in exactly the same way as I was reporting to Air Marshal Burridge, so the fail-safes were there. So if we, the UK, had given 1 MEU, this single American Unit, an order that perhaps they felt was not in the US interests, contrary to US law, they had a fail-safe mechanism, exactly in the same way as we had.

Q526  Mr Jones: And that did not arise at any time?

Major General Brims: It did not. I am not aware of it ever being exercised.

Q527  Mr Jones: And, if it had been, what was the actual way of sorting it out?

Major General Brims: I am quite sure that the Commanding General of 1 MEF and I would have had a discussion, and, as it did not happen, I am confident that General Conway, the Commanding General of 1 MEF, and I would have been able to sort that out.

Q528  Chairman: Was there any difference in doctrine between the British Army and the US Marine Corps? I know their marines probably are more numerous than the Army, but was there any difference that might have caused any conflict?

Major General Brims: There are no instances of difference, but the basic doctrines are the same. And I think that the pick-up of the US marine, the US marines are much smaller than the US Army, they are about the size of the British Defence Forces, and they are actually structured as genuinely joint, they are the Fourth Force, they are not within the Navy in the same way as the Royal Marines are in the Royal Navy. So, I think, their size, and therefore they know each other, they are quite akin to us in that sense. The American planning system is different from ours, but we know that, we have worked with them; they operate a system that suits them, which is, they plan the staff, do the planning and present options to a commander, who chooses, and then they develop the option. We tend to have a command-led planning process, that starts with a commander and his staff, and then the commander gives the staff direction, they develop the direction. Both systems are perfectly respectable; you had to work very hard to get them to co-operate with each other, because one lot of staff has more freedom than the other lot of staff, when you are planning together, but we knew that and we have the universal connectors to be able to get over that.

Q529  Chairman: And have we been doing any sort of joint exercising with them?

Major General Brims: Oh, yes. What I have described to you, if you read the Operation Granby Report, it came across very clearly in that, and we knew that, we worked hard at making sure that we knew it, and therefore we could find ways of working to overcome it.

Q530  Mr Roy: Can I ask what your command relationship with British Special Forces was, in your sector?

Major General Brims: None; the Special Forces are a component, in the same way that I was a component, so the Special Forces component would report nationally to the NCC Headquarters, and in the coalition sense to the Coalition Special Forces. So, it was nothing to do with me.

Q531  Mr Roy: And were you happy with that arrangement?

Major General Brims: It was nothing to do with me.

Q532  Mr Roy: Yes; but you were happy that it was nothing to do with you, that is what I am asking?

Major General Brims: Yes. I would never expect it to be like that, I would never expect it to be any other way than it was.

Q533  Chairman: They must have told you what they were doing; it is not like some stealth force suddenly appearing on territory that you were operating in, even though maybe you were not there?

Major General Brims: They did not.

Q534  Chairman: They did not tell you?

Major General Brims: No, they did not appear on my territory.

Q535  Chairman: They did not?

Major General Brims: No.

Q536  Chairman: That is a recipe for friendly fire, if they did not let you know what they were doing?

Major General Brims: No; they were not under my command, but if any Special Forces had been in my area, obviously, they would have been in touch.

Chairman: That is a great relief anyway.

Q537  Mr Howarth: Gentlemen, when did you start planning for the ground campaign? We understand the Americans were really planning it at the beginning of last summer, at Centcom, and that the Brits were being involved towards the end of the year?

Major General Brims: I got involved in the planning phase right at the end of September, when I started to be made aware of some of the planning going on, I would not say actually I was directly involved in it, so I was watching some of the potential planning from then. By the end of October, beginning of November, I became more involved, and in order to conduct an exercise we developed some plans within an exercise setting, which took place in early December.

Q538  Mr Howarth: And were you involved directly with Centcom in that planning, did they call on your advice as to what the British contribution could be, or did you just simply fit into the Americans' plan when you got together?

Major General Brims: No. I did go to a couple of senior commanders' conferences at Centcom, and I was aware of the planning, but I was, as it were, on listening, so I could understand the higher levels of the plan and therefore develop my own plans to fit in within their concepts and intents. But I did not contribute to that planning; other British officers did but I did not.

Q539  Mr Howarth: At that point, to where was your reporting line?

Major General Brims: At that particular junction, I was reporting actually to Land Command, as it were, my full command, but in detail I reported to the Permanent Joint Headquarters.

Q540  Mr Howarth: Did you, at that stage, envisage the kind of level of commitments that we were going to be making?

Major General Brims: At that stage, I did not have any orders.

Q541  Mr Howarth: What were you working on, in your discussions with the Americans?

Major General Brims: Planning.

Q542  Mr Howarth: The planning obviously was based upon a certain British contribution. At that stage, did they ask you and say, "What, General, do you think the UK can bring to the party?"?

Major General Brims: There were different permutations at that stage. The structure that I described at the start, that which we actually went with, by New Year that was the structure, to go there; all planning before then was with a range of different structures.

Q543  Mr Howarth: So there were a number of options?

Major General Brims: There were options, there were plans, there was nothing sufficiently firmed up.

Q544  Mr Howarth: Did you have a clear view in your own mind as to what the best British contribution could be?

Major General Brims: To do what, where?

Q545  Mr Howarth: To achieve the objective that the Americans were looking for everyone to achieve, in conjunction with the British?

Major General Brims: What, coming from Kuwait?

Q546  Mr Howarth: Indeed; because it was planned that we would come from Turkey?

Major General Brims: To come from Kuwait to do it, the best structure would be the one I was given. If I had gone somewhere else, it would not have been that structure.

Q547  Mr Howarth: I think I follow, General. But did your detailed planning change between January, when you suggest things firmed up and the options were considered, and March? There was talk, at some stage during that period, of the United States looking to rely more heavily on air power and on lighter ground forces; were you aware of that, were you in that loop?

Major General Brims: No. I am completely outside that loop. I was given a plan that I developed, without any huge change from January through to March; because, part of January, I was planning to come from Kuwait. So it is from early January that I was informed that I would have the task organisation, or probably have that task organisation, and probably come from Kuwait; I think it was January 20'ish that the Government made the decision that that was what would happen.

Q548  Mr Howarth: It must have taken quite a substantial reconsideration of how you were going to move from one set of tactics to a completely different set of tactics?

Major General Brims: I do not think so. I think we have got sufficiently agile, flexible forces to be able to do that.

Q549  Mr Howarth: Were the Americans impressed?

Major General Brims: You would have to ask them. I commanded 24 Air Mobile Brigade myself, and when I commanded 24 Air Mobile Brigade we were not in operations, and my logistics support, not under my command, came from the then Colonel Cowlam.

Q550  Jim Knight: Just briefly, Brigadier, I wanted to ask a similar question. I appreciate your responsibilities were about logistics in theatre and not supplies from the UK, but at what stage did you start being involved in planning for that, given that inevitably you were going to get a really short time window to get everything distributed out to where it needed to go?

Brigadier Cowlam: The time line involved in my own Headquarters was roughly the same as that mentioned by the General, although personally I was not involved in the senior commanders' seminars in the States, but we did send members of staff to assist with the Division's team, and we were in consultation with PJHQ, through October, November, December, helping them and offering them staff assistance in their contingency planning, to give them a view of what capability could be provided and what time lines. So we were aware particularly of the northern option, as a contingency plan that was being developed, and we contributed to it as best we could.

Q551  Jim Knight: And given 'just in time' and that that requires certain assumptions, certain types of campaign would require certain types of ammunition, and you would have to make sure that all that was going to come through?

Brigadier Cowlam: Our assumptions were based on the assumptions which we were working on. I challenge that they are 'just in time', I think that is a bit of jargon that people have grasped to describe what we were doing, but certainly we do not have, I think, a British military logistics philosophy which is based on 'just in time', certainly not for operational logistics. The contributions we were making were on our capability, how quickly, how far, how we would organise ourselves and what resources we would need to do a range of tasks over a range of distances.

Q552  Jim Knight: And during that planning phase, are there points at which it is the job of your logisticians to say, "Sorry, folks, you just can't plan to be able to do that, because I'm not going to be able to get the stuff out there in time"?

Brigadier Cowlam: The overall estimate does take logistics into account, and we listen to what the commander would like to do and then we do various staff checks, working out how we would achieve that. But I do not recollect any stage where we said, "That's a no-hoper, we can't do it," it was more a case of what additional resources and how would we go around arranging ourselves to enable the commander to have the greatest freedom of action.

Q553  Mr Cran: Gentlemen, still under the heading of Preparation and Planning, the literature that is building up around the campaign that we are talking about suggests that the campaign set off 48 hours before that which was originally planned, as a result of the possibilities being provided by the decapitation raids; and, indeed, also it is suggested that the campaign really started two weeks earlier than you were ready for it. Would you like to comment on both those propositions?

Major General Brims: Yes. To take the second one, no, we were ready. Of course, you could spend more time, although actually we had declared certain dates that we would be ready and we were inside that, so we were ready. The operation, in the final analysis, D-day, that is the language, D-day and HR(?) did get pulled forward, first by 24 hours and then by another 24 hours. That was partly because, as I understand it, there were some opportunity targets for deep air to do, but I think that we had always decided that we wanted to get the land campaign launched early so that we could try to capture the oil infrastructure intact, and, in the final analysis, as I understand it, there were thoughts that the oil infrastructure was in danger of being trashed; and therefore, the decision, because we were bounced to go early, we did.

Q554  Mr Cran: The reason I think I asked the question was not only because that is what is being suggested, not, I may say, by the people at the sharp end, of course, you have contradicted that, but I think essentially for the question that Mr Knight put to you. Because it seems to us, at least, having gone out and spoken to some of the components of the force that you commanded, that really they were, in a sense, superbly professional people, of course, and we associate ourselves with your remarks, but, nonetheless, they had difficulties in the sense that the equipment was not always with them at the time. And therefore this whole question of whether it all started off quicker than you wanted really fits into that question, does it not?

Major General Brims: Certainly, if you come from my perspective, we were ready; if you work from their perspective, certain of the units would say they were not ready, because, the last Brigade, we came in Brigade by Brigade, so the first one ready was 3 Commando Brigade, then 16 Air Assault Brigade and then 7 Armoured Brigade, and we defined readiness, the readiness to be able to conduct the plan that we had agreed, would be where we had two battle groups of 7 Armoured Brigade ready, and that was the definition of readiness. Now, if you went and saw the two battle groups of 7 Armoured Brigade that were not the two that were declared the first ready, they would tell you that they were not ready, but the Division was; if that is a reasonable explanation. And the two battle groups, the last two battle groups in were the Scots Dragoon Guards and 2 RTR, but, I may say, they did do the catch-up and they caught up remarkably quickly, and, with all their professionalism, skill and determination, they made light of that; but, from their perspective, they would be entirely accurate to say that they were not ready at that stage.

Q555  Mr Cran: Then just so that I get this absolutely clear, and I think you have made it quite clear, I just am circling in my mind as to at what point do you, and, of course, you, Brigadier, say to yourself, because it cannot be 100 per cent prepared, it just cannot be, because of how life is, and logistics, and all the rest of it, where are we; where does the point arrive when you say, "Fine; we're ready"?

Major General Brims: The judgment is reached, partly you can do it by defining the numbers of troops that you need by capability and volume.

Q556  Mr Cran: With their equipment with them as well?

Major General Brims: Yes. And you agree that with the coalition and the national chain of command, and we had defined that, and the definition was 2 Battle 7 Brigade. That is in a scientific way. But, ultimately, you know when they are ready when you look them in the eye, and the person I would turn to, to reach the judgment, would be the Commander, in this case, of 7 Armoured Brigade, and the opportunity to go forward and see the commanders and some of the troops of the two, well, all battle groups in question, but certainly those two battle groups.

Q557  Mr Cran: I understand all of that, and just to get another one just quite straight. The commentators were saying that you were planning for something two weeks later, or thereabouts; was that true, or not, or had you a much more flexible approach to this?

Major General Brims: I have no idea what the commentators said.

Q558  Mr Cran: Well, we have to rely on them occasionally?

Major General Brims: It is complete news to me. I was ready to go, and I thought we would go and we did, and we were called forward and we could do it.

Mr Cran: Chairman, I am happy with that.

Q559  Chairman: Yes; we met some of the guys yesterday. I would prefer to talk to the quartermaster before asking if they were ready to roll, but you know the situation far better than I do.

Major General Brims: I see what you mean, yes; ah, but the commander would talk to the quartermaster too.

Q560  Chairman: But do the commanders always know what the quartermasters know?

Major General Brims: The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Chairman: Well they were very happy their kit was finally arriving, when we met them yesterday.

Q561  Mr Howarth: I think it was only baked the night before, in that particular case.

Major General Brims: Sometimes, you have to be positive, and you are dealt a hand of cards and you have to play the hand of cards you have got to the very best of your ability to deliver the mission; you cannot turn round, on some sort of scientific basis, and say, "I'm not going to do it."

Q562  Chairman: You would like to have 52 cards in the deck, when you do play them; but that is more a question for the DLO, I think, than for yourself?

Major General Brims: But, in this case, we had actually declared readiness in that scenario with 46 cards; that was the state of readiness, because two of the battle groups were not, to go back to the earlier question.

Q563  Patrick Mercer: General, we have touched on this already. With the benefit of hindsight, did you have enough troops for what you were required to do?

Major General Brims: Yes.

Q564  Patrick Mercer: Were they the right mix; again, we have touched on this already?

Major General Brims: Yes, absolutely.

Q565  Patrick Mercer: For instance, would you have two Armoured Brigades used, rather than simply one?

Major General Brims: To do what?

Q566  Patrick Mercer: The fighting that you were confronted with?

Major General Brims: I was given a mission and tasks within a concept of operations, which was the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, and I judged that I had the forces commensurate with that mission and tasks; so I was happy.

Q567  Patrick Mercer: Was there any equipment that you might have liked, again, in retrospect; for instance, you mentioned MLRS that you did not have, might that have been useful, or was there something else available?

Major General Brims: No, I do not think so. We examined the MLRS very carefully; it is an area weapon and, right from the outset, when we put this force together, in early January, with our analysis of the ground, of the nature of the population and the probability of the way the Iraqis would fight, it seemed to me an inappropriate weapon system, we wanted something which had precision. And, therefore, in that sense, that deep range was going to be that provided by the 3rd Marine Air Wing; so I was very happy.

Q568  Patrick Mercer: Is there anything else, that you felt that there was a gap?

Major General Brims: No.

Q569  Patrick Mercer: We talked to two of your battle groups yesterday, neither of whom went at full war establishment, I do not know, I am not sure whether the Commanding Officers knew, whether they chose, or whether it was simply expedient, that the two Tank Regiments, to whom we were talking, both went three squadrons rather than four. What was it; what it choice, was it expediency, why did they not go at war establishment, was that what you directed, or simply was it a best effort?

Major General Brims: It did go at full squadrons. Regimentally, they went with fewer squadrons, but there were two extra squadrons provided by the Queen's Royal Lancers, which produced the extra squadrons, so that we did have square battle groups, i.e. two tank squadrons in the battle groups. And that was achieved by the numbers available, by reinforcing with the two squadrons, the Queen's Royal Lancers, who are normally, physically, in 4 Brigade, in Osnabruck.

Q570  Patrick Mercer: Going back to the question about the two Armoured Brigades, we saw yesterday that these two Regiments, that we are talking about, had taken reinforcements from 4 Brigade, and, the Infantry, there were four companies brought from 20 Brigade. If you had wanted to deploy from your normal order of battle, if you had wanted to deploy two, or even three, Armoured Brigades, could you have done that, at battle strength?

Major General Brims: You would have to provide quite a long answer to the question. I am not really a competent authority. You would have to ask Land Command that, and you would have to define what you meant by an Armoured Brigade and what you meant by an Armoured Battalion; and it is a bigger question, I am not the competent authority to answer that. It was not a relevant question to me at the time.

Chairman: Thank you. We have a few questions on the Basra decision.

Q571  Jim Knight: As you said, there was the northern option, I think the good Brigadier described it as. If asked to do so, could the 1 (UK) Division have supported a major thrust down into the north of Iraq, given the terrain, given the long lines of communication?

Major General Brims: Yes.

Q572  Jim Knight: So our logistics capabilities would have been up to the task, or would we have had to rely on the Americans?

Brigadier Cowlam: For the northern option, we were planning both to rely on the Americans to help us with transit facilities through Turkey, and also to take more British logistics, including more C2 fighters in both Logistics Brigades, one, as the Land 3rd Line logistics component, and the second as a Joint Force logistics component, so we did have a plan, which we developed in the autumn, to allow that to happen.

Q573  Jim Knight: I think we would all agree that it was remarkable, the logistics achievement in such a short time-frame, and I think also we would agree that it was not without its problems, and we will go on to discuss those. Do you think those problems would have been greater or fewer if you had had the northern option?

Brigadier Cowlam: It is difficult to assess, in terms of time and distance, and many of the issues about logistics are about time and distance, how much time you have got and how far you need to go. I think, because we were planning to use more forces and we were going to rely on greater host nation and American assistance, it is difficult to judge which would have been the worst option.

Q574  Jim Knight: So would you agree that, from a logistics standpoint, it would have been very challenging?

Brigadier Cowlam: Both the north and the south were very challenging.

Q575  Jim Knight: Would you agree that it would have been more challenging from a logistics standpoint?

Brigadier Cowlam: It is difficult to assess, and the reason is that, of course, from the north we would not have had to go through the Suez Canal and all the way round into the Gulf. The level of infrastructure in Turkey we had not seen, and therefore I cannot comment. The level of infrastructure in the south was very good. The best I can say is, I think both would have been very challenging.

Q576  Jim Knight: And so there was no suggestion that you guys, from the UK point of view, were lobbying for Basra over the northern option?

Major General Brims: I did not make that decision, that was made above me. When we were planning the north, I got on with my tactical planning in that area and we were making a plan there, and we exercised some things there, and then I was asked to make a tactical plan with a different scenario, so I got on and did that.

Q577  Jim Knight: And then, finally, if we had fought alongside the US forces moving towards Baghdad, would we have had then to rely pretty much solely on their logistics chain?

Brigadier Cowlam: No, I do not think so. We did some work to assess the reach, that we could push, say, 7 Brigade further north, and, whilst Baghdad is a long way, the infrastructure in the country very much would allow them to move. An unknown factor, when we were thinking about this, was how much resistance they would face, from a logistics point of view; perversely, it is better if the rate of advance is quite slow, whereas, from an operational perspective, the reverse is true and a rapid advance is a greater logistics challenge.

Q578  Jim Knight: And there is some discussion that it was almost a move to use some of the logistics tail as a way of enticing out forces and then coming back and getting them, I have seen that discussed in some journals. I mean, force protection of logistics must be an increasing concern for you?

Brigadier Cowlam: I would not be an advocate of using your logistics to entice your enemy to attack you; but force protection, clearly, is a major factor in all the work and the estimates that we take on. We did look at going north, and came to a judgment of how far we could push, because, because it is time and distance again, you can go very long distances, it depends on how much time you want to do it in, and what sequencing and phasing would be required if elements of 1 Div. were going to go further north.

Jim Knight: Thank you. Your faith in the northern option is admirable, slightly greater than the impression we got from the Secretary of State and Brian Burridge; but, that is great.

Q579  Chairman: I would be interested to know how it could be equally challenging to cross mountains and rivers as opposed to fairly flat land? I know it is more sandy in the south, but really I would have thought that coming through Turkey and coming through Kurdish territory would have been significantly more challenging than transiting the Suez Canal and arriving by boat and driving up to Basra?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think that is why I said I could not make a judgment on which was the most challenging, because I had not seen northern Turkey. But what I do know is that there are various NATO plans which have been worked over many years to produce plans, and we had access to those, and that is why I cannot judge which would have been more difficult, because I know the south intimately but I do not know the north, apart from the direct planning.

Chairman: Well I think it would be quite difficult; anyway that was not a problem we had to face.

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 at 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 per cent 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.

The Committee suspended from 4.02 pm to 4.22 pm for a division in the House.

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, you 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.

Q600  Mr Roy: But did that policy increase the dangers to our Armed Forces; did that political policy, that was stated by the Secretary of State, increase the danger to our Forces?

Major General Brims: No, I do not think so; no.

Q601  Mr Roy: None at all?

Major General Brims: No. I think we were very aware of it, and it seemed to me the best way to do things. If I may, to make the issue a bit clearer, I would assess that Saddam Hussein's regime wanted us to go into the urban areas and fight, be they the Armed Forces or the irregulars, in those urban areas, so that we would have caused collateral damage, damaged people, taken casualties ourselves, high casualties, the media would have reported it, and, potentially, somebody would have said, "Up with this we cannot put." And there would have been huge pressure, I think, on the leadership of the coalition, and potentially some form of the regime suing for a settlement. And, therefore, that, I think, was one of the courses of action that I thought he might take, that is what I assessed he was doing when we got to about days D plus two, three, four, this was becoming self-evident. And that is why we conducted operations to do things in a clever way that actually used the population, we wanted them to be on our side, and tried to drive a wedge between the population and the regime, in whatever way the regime was being represented at a particular moment.

Q602  Mr Roy: I can understand that, but what also we saw were the images of our soldiers in berets, very, very quickly after they had gone into Basra, and obviously that was to follow on the original policy that our argument is not with the Iraqi people. But was there not a case that maybe there was a chance that those soldiers were taking off their hard hat and putting on their beret rather early, to suit what the policy had been in the first instance?

Major General Brims: No, I do not think so. Obviously, there is an element of risk in that. I did not give out orders for people to put their beret on and helmet off, and so forth, I left that to local commanders to judge as they saw fit, and I am confident that our commanders, right down to the man on the ground, who may well be a corporal, or a sergeant, have got the judgment to make those judgments. There is a risk in it, of course, but I think it was a risk that was worth taking, and I think those judgments were well exercised by everybody.

Q603  Chairman: Thank you. So, the existence of weapons of mass destruction, how far was their existence, or the belief of their existence in the Iraqi armoury, central to the belief by your forces of the legitimacy of the operation? I know Mr Campbell is answering the same questions next-door to us.

Major General Brims: I cannot connect what it would do to the legitimacy; but, as far as I was concerned, we took the threat of weapons of mass destruction very seriously, we did our training, we took the defensive measures, in terms of equipment, taking the necessary pills, and so forth, we did all of that. And, within the operation, one of the advantages of going early with the ground campaign was that it meant there was less opportunity for those people who had been trying to hide the weapons of mass destruction to bring them together and use them against us. And, secondly, we conducted an extensive information operations campaign, among other things, telling people not to use weapons against us, and if they did they would be held personally accountable and it would not be an excuse to say that you had been ordered to do so. And I think all of those things were very prominent in our minds, in getting our message across, against the threat of them being used.

Q604  Chairman: If you were anticipating an NBC attack then I presume, as the kit issued, following one attack, would need to be disposed of and a second or third or fourth set of suits issued - this is a question for the Brigadier - did you have enough sets that could have been issued should our troops have been subject to multiple chemical attacks?

Brigadier Cowlam: The number of sets of suits for NBC and other consumables that we required were specified in the sustainability statement, which gives the holdings and numbers of suits to be held at different levels. Across the force, there were some imbalances, which led to a plan to redistribute some of the equipment. I cannot actually answer the question whether or not there were sufficient numbers of suits, I think it was three suits per man for the whole force.

Q605  Chairman: Perhaps you could drop us a note as to how many you had?

Brigadier Cowlam: Yes.

Q606  Mr Jones: In terms of some of the suits that were issued, is it a fact that some of them actually were out of date; the labels on some of them, we were told, were actually expiry dates, and the individuals they were issued to were just told that their life had been extended?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think that is the case with respirator canisters, when some did have a 'use by' date, which were then re-lifed, as a result of work tests and analysis in the UK, but I do not know the scale of that.

Chairman: Perhaps, when you go back, you can give us a fuller reply than you are able to in open session, because this would be very helpful.

Q607  Mr Jones: So actually you are saying they were given an extra life, it was not just somebody sitting in an office deciding they had got an extra life, they were actually analysed and proven to have, the fact that they could actually be issued?

Brigadier Cowlam: Absolutely.

Q608  Jim Knight: Did you have a policy, or a statement, in relation to air filters for NBC on your vehicles, and whether or not they should be refreshed; if the vehicle was 40 years old and had had only one filter ever in its life, whether or not those would be refreshed?

Brigadier Cowlam: The sustainability statement would not express it in those ways. The assumption would be that the filter was serviceable and then the replacement of the filter would be dictated by the decline in its effectiveness.

Q609  Jim Knight: Was the sustainability statement communicated to your people on the ground, so that they had the confidence that all of this had been thought through and that they were properly protected?

Brigadier Cowlam: The sustainability statement is a document used by the staff to decide what sustainability levels are to be deployed and what systems are to be put in place. I suspect it does not cascade down to every tank driver and commander.

Q610  Jim Knight: Is that something you are thinking about, in terms of, if someone is there, about to go into theatre, or in theatre, and they are looking at a canister that has got an expiry date that has passed, or they know that they are in a vehicle with a filter that has not been changed for 20 years, that it is worth making sure that they know that that has been thought through and that they have not been overlooked?

Brigadier Cowlam: Indeed; and, of course, units have a responsibility themselves to maintain their equipment in a serviceable manner, and, of course, a lot of preparation of the equipment took place in the UK and Germany before they deployed, and the units, both the quartermasters and the OC workshops and the squadron company commanders themselves have a responsibility to make sure that their equipment is serviceable.

Q611  Jim Knight: And if they took a decision that they needed to replace those filters, or those canisters, or whatever, you were confident that you had the supplies available to get them to them in time, within that limited logistics window that you had?

Brigadier Cowlam: I cannot answer that question, because, of course, a lot of the demands for replacements in the early stages would be going through the normal supply chain in the UK and Germany. If the unit had then deployed between demanding the item and the item becoming available, there is a mechanism which would divert that spare to theatre, and it is called the Task Issue, and we see it arriving in theatre and then move it forward through the logistics chain to that unit.

Q612  Jim Knight: And is that mechanism flexible enough so that if, for whatever reason, that item is late arriving and that unit has now gone back to Germany, shall we say, that it is not then going to forward it on to Germany, where it is not needed any more, because it is a desert uniform and they are back in Germany, that you might hang on to it in theatre and give it to somebody else who is issued a Task Issue and might need it?

Brigadier Cowlam: In some cases, it is.

Q613  Jim Knight: In some cases it is flexible enough, and in some cases it is not?

Brigadier Cowlam: Correct.

Q614  Mr Jones: I have got something on the canister. You said that, obviously, there was analysis done here so that they could be extended; who was actually told, and how was it communicated, that these canisters were perfectly okay to use?

Brigadier Cowlam: Told to us, or as we pass the information down?

Q615  Mr Jones: Who actually had got to be told about the canisters? If you were given a canister and it had an extended life, obviously it was concerning; how far was that information passed down the chain of command, who was told?

Brigadier Cowlam: We pass the information to the next level in the chain of command down, and they cascade the information down.

Q616  Mr Jones: If I told you that actually that did not happen, that people were issued with the canisters, and it was one of those issues that was of serious concern to a lot of people that they were not actually told that this analysis had been done and it was okay to use these, would you be surprised by that?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think, given the confusion, tiredness, geography, environment, heat, I am not surprised that every piece of information does not pass through the chain of command as smoothly as it could.

Q617  Mr Jones: Do you not think it is very important though, especially as actually we had come up against, for example, chemical and biological weapons, that the people who were going to use the kit should have the full confidence that the kit they had got was actually going to do the job?

Brigadier Cowlam: Absolutely. I agree.

Chairman: Cluster bombs. Patrick.

Q618  Patrick Mercer: Are you aware of whether coalition forces delivered cluster munitions into urban areas, in your area of operation?

Major General Brims: Cluster bombs. I am not aware of that.

Q619  Chairman: Some questions, General, on the military campaign. I have got a bundle of questions, four or five, I will come back to them one by one, but at least if you listen to the four you will see where I am coming from. The key points of the campaign, from your perspective; were you expecting a rapid collapse of Iraqi forces; what contribution did air power make; and what preliminary lessons do you think could be drawn from the degree of air/ground operation? If I could start with the first then. From your perspective, what were the key points that you would draw from the military campaign?

Major General Brims: In terms of, overall, from the campaign?

Q620  Chairman: The different stages; perhaps if you go through, the southern campaign, obviously, what you were involved with, what you felt were the different key points at the stages of the campaign, and perhaps what you thought were the main lessons to be drawn from each of those points?

Major General Brims: During the campaign, we had five big battle winners. The first was our troops, the second was Challenger 2, the third was Warrior, and the confidence that the troops had in Challenger and Warrior, which were really good, and the confidence they got in the protection that they afforded them against everything being thrown at us became itself like a virtuous circle. The fourth one was our artillery, particularly the AS90, having to fire at maximum range, the nature of the round itself and the phenomenal accuracy of it, way beyond anything that one might have expected, the troops found they could do. And the fifth significant battle winner was those that cue our artillery and air systems, in particular the Phoenix, the unmanned aerial vehicle; we flew it almost non-stop, we flew it beyond its normal ranges, and it was magnificent. And I would say those were the four battle winners, but the first was the troops.

Q621  Chairman: I must say, it is the first nice thing I have heard of Phoenix, in the 25, 30 years since the concept was first thought of, so I must remember what you said, because it is fairly unique. I am delighted it did work eventually. In terms of the conduct of the campaign, how would you identify, from your perspective, the different actual stages of that campaign? I am just wondering whether this compares with what we, as outsiders, saw as the key stages?

Major General Brims: I think that the first key stage, the fact that there was not a long air campaign in front of ground movement, which I explained, why that was the case, I think that was rather crucial, because I think it took everyone by surprise, and I think that worked very well for us. I think that and a number of other things really got inside their decision-making cycle. It had some downsides, because one then had to catch up with some of the things that normally, with your air campaign preceding your ground campaign, you would deny to your opponents, and I am thinking particularly of communications and the length of time that that was open, and that became quite a frustration to us at a tactical level, although on another sphere doing it that way round had big pay-offs. That was the first point. Then there is the initial attack into 51 Division, which was the enemy division immediately to our front, which you might describe as being done almost as a set-piece attack, but under huge fire power that division evaporated. Then I would describe the next point as finding ourselves holding the bridges on the outskirts of Basra, coming under counter-attack by the Iraqi conventional forces, and then also coming in our rear areas under attack from his irregulars, principally but not only from the town of al Zubayr. The moment at which we worked out how we were going to deal with that, which I thought was a critical moment, the conduct of what I understand was called the 'three-block war', fighting his conventional armed forces, concurrently fighting his irregulars, whilst, the third part, delivering humanitarian aid, and so forth, in those areas where we had freed Iraqis from the regime. And then, finally, getting into Basra, and effectively removing the regime from the province of Basra, and, in fact, they fled from the province of Mesan, which is immediately north, and the significance of that was there were four enemy divisions from between Basra and Amara, which effectively we had fixed in place, and they had not been able to interfere with the coalition operations.

Q622  Chairman: There was a period in the campaign, according to the media, where things were really stalling, there were enormous difficulties, people saying they had the wrong configuration of forces on the American side, and then, on reflection, it was a pretty swift war, by the timescale of wars. Did you anticipate such a swift collapse of a willingness to fight, did you expect it to last longer?

Major General Brims: One hoped for it, but I did not assume it, and one was prepared to go for longer. I do not think it could have been much shorter than it was, because there is a physical aspect of moving the distance the US forces had to move, not our forces. So, I would agree, remarkably swift.

Q623  Chairman: Did your intelligence indicate that the Republican Guard would be resolute, as we were all told it was going to be, the ordinary soldiers, did you anticipate that they would chuck in the towel fairly swiftly?

Major General Brims: I would say that his army, which was principally what I was up against, fought less than it might have. I thought his irregulars fought more venomously, and actually voluminously in southern parts, than we had anticipated; take the two together, not far off what I hoped would be the case, rather than what, let us say, I anticipated.

Q624  Chairman: From the perspective of the irregulars and the ones that were captured, did you find a high incidence of outsiders, was there any difference between the enthusiasm to fight and whether they were Syrians, or Jordanians, or Palestinians, or whatever, or ordinary Iraqis, can you draw a distinction?

Major General Brims: I think that many of the ones we caught probably allowed themselves to be caught because, in fact, they were former soldiers who had fled 51 Division and then were being coerced into fighting as irregulars, and they got to a point at which they could surrender, and therefore we could capture them. I think that some of the others fought to the death.

Q625  Chairman: With air power, I am sure any RAF guys in our midst would see the enormous importance of air power, but, from your perspective, as a ground force commander, what contribution did air power make to the rapid defeat of the deployed Iraqi ground forces?

Major General Brims: I think it was significant, because where we were using air at the sort of tactical level, supporting our divisional operations, and essentially we were tasking the 3rd Marine Air Wing of the US Marine Corps to do it for us, we were very aware that the coalition air was also applying its fire power in a much deeper way elsewhere, so the combined effect. But that is a question that really would get a more detailed answer by the NCC, or obviously the Air Component Commander.

Q626  Chairman: What preliminary lessons can be drawn from the degree of air/ground co-operation and effectiveness achieved?

Major General Brims: Utilising 3rd MAW, the Marine Air Wing, as a tactical air wing; in order to do it, we had to receive from the American Armed Forces what they call Anglico battalions, Anglico stands for Air, Naval, Gunfire Liaison Officers, I think, I am not 100 per cent perfect on it, but they come with communications, life support vehicles, and everything else, and you could say to them, "We need the fire there," they will call for it, and we had them embedded throughout our chain of command and it worked wonderfully well. And during the training preparation phase, in Kuwait, we made sure that we could operate with these people, it was absolutely vital that we could, particularly, having made the early decision that we would not take, for example, our multi-launch rocket systems, we were determined that that was what the US Government offered to us, and we made sure that we could utilise it to the best effect. And I think there are some very useful lessons, militarily, to take, because it was great.

Q627  Chairman: Was there any difference in the arrival times of the American aircraft that you called up or the British aircraft, as supposedly they were interchangeable?

Major General Brims: No. Actually, providing the fire was produced, I would not know whether it was a British or an American one.

Q628  Chairman: Was it the kind of air support that you had to put in a request for 24 hours before, or were you able to rustle them up fairly quickly, if the occasion arose?

Major General Brims: Both.

Chairman: Okay; thank you.

Q629  Mr Roy: Major General, we heard the stories of the dolphins clearing the Umm Qasr waterways, and suchlike; did the securing of Umm Qasr go to plan and timetable, frankly?

Major General Brims: Broadly, yes. Umm Qasr was the only urban area that I was required to take itself, everywhere else, urban areas, eventually we would have to get into, because to remove a regime you cannot leave them in control of an urban area, but, with the Land Component Commander's plan, Umm Qasr was the only place I had to get into, everywhere else, so to go into Basra, actually, I was not allowed to go into Basra until the Land Component Commander agreed, because that was not what his purpose was at that stage. We did get into it immediately, and it was in the early stages of realising that you were dealing with these irregulars, and they kept popping up, it took us a bit of time, and that bit of the reporting I did see, they actually said that we were in Umm Qasr, the Iraqi Minister of Information said, "Oh, no, he's not," actually we were in, but so were they, and there was a period of, I think, about 24, 26 hours - - -

Q630  Mr Roy: It seemed to me that the al Faw peninsula appeared to go very quickly, and then there seemed to be a hold-up?

Major General Brims: There was a slight hold-up there. In fact, the al Faw peninsula, although the al Faw bit went very quickly and very successfully, there were some quite persistent attacks just north of al Faw town itself, which went on for a couple of days, until the Royal Marines had defeated it in detail, which they did.

Q631  Mr Roy: The port itself, obviously, it was critical that the British took it as quickly as possible, but once we were there was the area large enough for the logistical exercise and the amount of supplies that were landing onto it, in order both to take the supplies and, more importantly, once those supplies had landed, to keep track of them?

Brigadier Cowlam: We did not use Umm Qasr port for resupply. Umm Qasr port was taken, cleared and then retained for humanitarian purposes; this was until I left, which was early May.

Q632  Mr Roy: Yes, but was it big enough for what we wanted to do with it?

Brigadier Cowlam: We did not have military plans for it.

Major General Brims: Umm Qasr port was to be taken so that humanitarian aid could come through it, and, I do not know, I was not aware of any difficulty on that front.

Brigadier Cowlam: Umm Qasr port is the main food port; there are two ports in Umm Qasr, and they are very large, the northern port is quite modern and we found it in quite good condition, it had not been destroyed, I think, as some people had feared.

Q633  Mr Roy: So there was no chance of losing any supplies; humanitarian aid, once it had landed, there was not a hold-up because people did not know where it had landed or where it was going?

Brigadier Cowlam: In terms of humanitarian aid, in the early stages, not a great deal came in, because there was a problem clearing the channel from mines, and then also dredging the channel that was there, deepening it, so that the larger humanitarian ships could come into it.

Q634  Mr Roy: So that was where their problems ended, on the water base?

Brigadier Cowlam: I did not know there were problems, because the stuff was not coming through at this stage.

Q635  Patrick Mercer: Gentlemen, the press presented the approach to Basra as being unconventional tactics that were used, I do not know whether that came across to you or not, certainly that was how it was articulated, as far as the press was concerned. First of all, do you accept that this was unconventional, and, if you do, why did you take that approach?

Major General Brims: I cannot comment on whether it was conventional or unconventional, in that sense. Why did we take the approach. I described, we were holding the bridges on the western outskirts of Basra, we were coming under fire from its Armed Forces and counter-attacks, and that situation lasted for about two weeks. Around al Zubayr, with a population of about 100,000, we were coming under attack from irregulars, who were operating in and from al Zubayr, and we had taken some casualties, we had two of our Royal Engineers missing, and we realised what was going on. First of all, we had to reconfigure ourselves to protect our softer targets, to minimise the number of targets, and 7 Armoured Brigade, whose area this was, did that very quickly. And I talked to the Brigade Commander, I cannot remember the date, but we were about four or five days into the thing, one evening I was there with him, we were talking through it, and he said, "I'm going to work out how we're going to take al Zubayr," and I said, "Good, I'll go away and consider Basra." And he said, "I've got the most powerful Armoured Brigade the British Army's ever put in the field, and I'll back-brief you on my bit, of al Zubayr, tomorrow morning." I arranged to see him first thing in the morning, and his commanders were all there, and he asked me to come aside of him for a short time, and he said to me, "I've worked out, we can't go into al Zubayr using the most powerful force at my disposal, because that's what the regime want; we'll inflict undue casualties, we'll take undue casualties, we will hurt the civilians, we'll wreck the infrastructure, and that's what he's after. We've got to do it in a more cunning way." And I said to him, "Well, that's funny, because I've worked out precisely the same thing for Basra." And we went for what was going to be a smoke break but we didn't even have chance to smoke, because actually we had worked out the same conclusion, and then we set about doing it unconventionally, if that is the way we did it. And the way we did it was to build up an intelligence picture, focused raids, ground raids, air raids, mined raids. All the time, what we were trying to do was destroy the regime and drive a wedge between the regime and the ordinary people, bearing in mind that the people in that southern part of Iraq, where we were, were Shia people, who had actually been the victims of the regime for 20 years, or more, and they had been the victims in the Iran/Iraq war, to and fro'ed across the area. Basra had never changed hands but al Faw had, and they suffered under the 1991 war, then they had their uprising in 1991, which was brutally put down, and they were abused, and I was aware of them continuing to be abused during the war, during the very days that I am describing to you. And, therefore, essentially, they were ripe for being liberated, and part of the intelligence success, done very much bottom-up, because these were people who wanted us to come in, they wanted to be freed but they could not do it themselves, they needed our support, and therefore actually we had them helping us, and they were feeding us intelligence, and accurate intelligence, worthy targets, and the system trusted us and we were able to conduct these raids, and they had a very significant effect.

Q636  Patrick Mercer: Thank you. Did you come under pressure to enter and secure Basra before you did, eventually?

Major General Brims: No. As I said earlier on, I had complete freedom to conduct operations as we, in 1 Div, saw fit.

Q637  Patrick Mercer: Was there any linkage between the fall of Baghdad and the fall of Basra; for instance, did you deliberately wait for Baghdad to be taken?

Major General Brims: It was a discussion point, but, as I indicated earlier, I had asked General McKiernan, who was the Land Component Commander, on a number of occasions, I said, "What are the conditions in which you would wish me to go into Basra, because, fine, we have got to go in?" And he said, "I don't want to go into Basra until I have attended to isolating the regime," because that was the purpose of what we called phase three of the operation, and he said that was a superior mission. And, therefore, actually, I knew that I did not need to go into Basra fast, I realised that removing the regime from Basra would certainly help in removing the regime from Baghdad; failing to remove it, or doing it messily, would actually have the reverse effect on Baghdad, so timing. And, I think, the moment at which we did go into Basra, a combination of a number of things, the fact that they had suddenly realised that they had two Corps surrounding Baghdad, the fact that our raids had been very successful, we really had driven this wedge, and the people increasingly had the confidence to turn against the people who were oppressing them. The optic that we were displaying, we had got into al Faw, Umm Qasr, Rumala, and, of course, we had al Zubayr latterly, and that we were co-operating with the people, we were giving them back their dignity and self-respect. We did target, known as, Chemical Ali, and I do not know whether we got him or not, but the point was, on 4 April, we conducted that attack, and in the ensuing 36 hours the people of Basra thought he was dead, and that was important, because they were utterly, utterly terrified of him, terrified of him, you could reduce people to shaking. And I think all of those things came to the moment that, on 6 April, when we pushed, we found that we could get in.

Q638  Patrick Mercer: How much influence do you think your style of operating in Basra had upon American operations in Baghdad?

Major General Brims: I do not know, because I was operating fully in the way we were doing. What I can say though is we did a lot, even during the war, of interchange of tactics and techniques between ourselves and the US Marine Division, in the MEF, and we did swap ideas, tactics and techniques.

Q639  Chairman: On air support, did the support of the helicopter fleet meet all of the logistics needs you had; any changes there that might be made?

Major General Brims: The support helicopters met a number of different needs for us on the logistics side.

Brigadier Cowlam: We did not use support helicopters a great deal, primarily because the distances and the quality of the terrain and roads that we were operating over really did not require us to use them.

Q640  Chairman: You touched on earlier the things that went really well. We met you in Oman, where Challenger 2 was experiencing some considerable difficulties because of the sand, I understand the sand was a bit different from Oman. Can you just give us your advice on the way in which the lessons of Oman were learned, when it came to adapting Challenger 2, very effectively, for deployment in the Gulf? And when we had Simon Webb et al to give evidence to us, he said that it was not the purpose of Saif Sareea to test equipment, just to show how effectively you could deploy. Was there any testing of equipment? It seems to me, there must have been, in Saif Sareea?

Major General Brims: To take Challenger 2, yes, because we desertised it, we up-armoured it, and I have spoken of the confidence; by up-armouring, effectively, you form a skirt down the sides, and actually that has a considerable dust mitigation side-effect. So some desertisation, up-armouring, not running out, because there is nothing wrong with Challenger, it is only if you run out of components, which, I think, is what you referred to when we were in Oman, and we did not run out of components, and we had a remarkably high availability rate, which is a tribute to everybody in the whole system. And I think there were many good lessons from Saif Sareea, because quite a number of people in the Headquarters, certainly the Divisional Headquarters, Signal Regiment, the fact that they lived there, they were comfortable, they understood the desert, I think it made a huge difference.

Q641  Mr Jones: Can I ask though, in terms of it working, there is no doubt about that, but why is it then that you were flying out engineers from Alvis Vickers, I think some actually went out there to desertise them in theatre; why were the problems that were identified at Saif Sareea not done earlier? For example, why was the desertisation not done earlier, and why did it take Alvis Vickers to have to fly engineers out there?

Major General Brims: That is the timing; we requested the desertisation, the timing of it was a matter for people above my level.

Q642  Mr Jones: Well, no; when were we in Saif Sareea, 2001?

Major General Brims: Saif Sareea was 2001; but a decision was taken not to desertise for that exercise.

Q643  Mr Jones: Yes; so, therefore, once we had actually committed to this operation, why was it necessary then at the last minute to send engineers out to desertise them in theatre?

Brigadier Cowlam: The reason was because there was not time to desertise them before they were embarked on shipping, and it made a lot of sense to use that time through concurrent activity. I think, as a result of Saif Sareea, the integrated project teams were well educated about what would be required to desertise and improve Challenger's reliability of performance in desert conditions. And so, on the one hand, we trained the battle groups and loaded the tanks and got them to the Middle East; concurrent with that, the Defence Procurement Agency were procuring the necessary pieces, and then we arranged a site in Kuwait to bring together the equipment and the contractors, to allow them to bring up the desertisation standard on Challenger 2.

Q644  Mr Jones: But when did Saif Sareea finish?

Brigadier Cowlam: November 2001.

Q645  Mr Jones: And when actually did you start sending out tanks for this operation?

Brigadier Cowlam: Late January 2003.

Q646  Mr Jones: So why were not steps taken in that year, because certainly it was a big issue that was in the press, and we raised it in our report on desertisation; why were not steps taken actually to do that desertisation beforehand?

Brigadier Cowlam: I cannot answer the question why they were not desertised; but all I would ask is, that presupposes that we knew that in 2003 we were going to fight a war in the desert, in 2001.

Mr Jones: Well, no, but we knew we would be using them somewhere in the desert, and it was quite a clear problem in Saif Sareea, was it not; apart from if you accept Mr Webb's, the Policy Director, argument that they were never meant actually to move anywhere in Oman?

Q647  Mr Roy: Just on the same point, could I ask you, I understand the tanks have arrived and then the desertisation begins, that window of opportunity must really have been only a few days; was it a couple of weeks or was it a couple of days, and was it long enough to do it?

Brigadier Cowlam: It was days, and it was long enough. We discussed before the D-day and G-day decision. We did not have a deadline by which time to be ready, it was the GOC's assessment that taking into account the arrival of manpower, equipment, the necessary up-armouring and adjustments, at what level various elements of the force would be declared operationally ready; and, by coincidence, the final two battle groups were declared operationally ready before they were required to be employed. But it was a fine line.

Q648  Mr Roy: Because we understood that one of the tankers going across there, for example, was late by a few days; so, therefore, you are saying that there was no knock-on effect, that anything arrived late?

Brigadier Cowlam: One of the final ships, NV (Tai Chi ?), which was the final ship, was delayed by about two days, and that meant that, whereas we thought we would have about, well, depending on how successful the up-armouring was going and when the final two battle groups were going to be declared ready, we thought we would have about five days, it turned out we had about three days. And on that final ship there were quite a few sustainment items, flat racks for drops.

Q649  Mr Roy: I just want to be clear on this window of opportunity. The tank crews, for example, presumably, were doing an awful lot of that work on the particular tanks during that window of opportunity, on the desertisation, just before they went into theatre. To the layman, was that a very good idea to have people working these long hours, that they must have been, doing that type of work, immediately before they went into theatre, are they ideal conditions?

Brigadier Cowlam: This is in Germany, are you talking about?

Q650  Mr Roy: No.

Brigadier Cowlam: In theatre, before their employment?

Q651  Mr Roy: Yes.

Brigadier Cowlam: I think it was a case of making sure that we were ready as quickly as possible.

Q652  Mr Roy: That was not the question, with respect, the question was is that the norm, is that ideal, that you could have crews working 12 hours on the desertisation? I know you had got the Vickers people at the front, and such, I understand all that, but was that window of opportunity a long enough time, because I would have thought, to the layman, that doing all of this long work that they would not have been ideal preparations for the crew just before they went into theatre?

Major General Brims: The sequence of events meant that the tanks had to be shipped when they were, some of the urgent operational requirements had to be shipped when they were; not my decision. We saw, when they came in, in co-operation with Brigadier Cowlam, what he could outlet, we made the plan, the sequencing, of how we would do the training, in the way you described, you have to fit things to the tanks, you have got to fire them to harmonise the computers, and a range of other things to do with things to make sure the soldiers are climatised and ready. And we worked out the best sequence that we could, adjusting it as appropriate, and, in fact, actually we delivered readiness ahead of our anticipated one, in the final analysis.

Q653  Chairman: It appears to me, the British Army and British industry have such a genius for improvisation, and doing things at the last possible moment, that sometimes that is exactly what they want to do. But if you are fighting a war, or going to fight a war, for which we had quite a lot of notice, a number of things seem to have been done really at the last possible moment; if the war had started a week earlier we might have been in considerable difficulty. So the timing of the war was quite helpful, the ability to improvise was as magnificent on this occasion as it was previously, certainly in the Falklands, but it does cause those of us who observe from a distance some sleepless nights, wondering whether it will be alright on the night. On this occasion, probably it was; but it does not need the Duke of Wellington, with his comments on Waterloo, to be replicated for some of the things that happened with us. It was a damn near-run thing, in terms of supplies, ships not arriving, kit arriving late, no left shoes, or whatever, complaints people have; we were quite fortunate, even though there were skilled people operating it, and the more I hear the more fortunate I think we were. Now if you think I am wrong, please, this is an opportunity to say it. So many things were done really at the last moment. Am I being fair?

Major General Brims: All I would say is that I do not make the decisions on when things are done and desertisation; my job is, I am dealt a hand of cards and I have got to play them to the best of my ability. And I am sure that we will learn some lessons where the best of my ability was not good enough, and we will make sure that we understand those.

Q654  Chairman: I am sure your abilities are very high.

Major General Brims: I cannot comment. I do not deal the pack of cards to myself. I get the hand I am dealt.

Q655  Chairman: Yes, but you would like a better hand?

Major General Brims: I would; and I think sometimes, even sometimes when you have got your hand, actually, you do not realise you have got the ace of spades. So I think we need to reflect. But, as far as I was concerned, I was consulted when we would be ready, and I described earlier we had agreed to define, within the battle plans and the concept, that when two battle groups of 7 Brigade were in and had done all the various processes we would be ready, and, in fact, come the moment, we actually had all four battle groups of 7 Brigade.

Q656  Mr Jones: Can I ask the question in this way then. If you had the ideal deck of cards, what could have been done better, in your opinion, than was done, in terms of logistical supply and also things like, as has been described, desertisation, and other things?

Major General Brims: If you had the wonderful thing, you would have one set of desertised tanks and one set of non-desertised tanks, but that seems to be unrealistic.

Q657  Chairman: It is a very good idea though?

Major General Brims: I need to answer without being completely frivolous, because it answers the question.

Mr Jones: It does not, actually.

Q658  Chairman: We just wish we could go down the Armani route and actually had a number of tanks that, in fact, were desertised, because the chances of some of them being used in the north German plain are fairly remote, the chances of being used in a desert environment are infinitely higher. I wonder whether there has been some thought given to having a stock that might be upgraded, to avoid the British improvisation, that we say, well, it is much cheaper, it may be far better having dedicated tanks?

Brigadier Cowlam: Of course, we do now. I think, to be fair, addressing the logistics issues, of course, we based our organisation stockholders and systems on a certain number of assumptions; on this occasion, we reacted well within those assumptions, in much tighter time-lines than we had assumed, and therefore I do not think any of us were too surprised that a lot of hard work had to go in, to make sure that the necessary equipment, supplies and capabilities were in the right place at the right time. I think the lesson that we are learning is we have got to make sure our assumptions are correct in the first place.

Q659  Chairman: But if the assumption, let us say, in the supply of ammunition, was it would be a three-week war then the supplies of ammunition you would require, obviously, would be very different than if the war had gone on for one month, two months, or three months. Can you say to us that, from your perspective, we had sufficient stocks of ammunition for more than a three-week war?

Brigadier Cowlam: Yes, I can. The levels and quantities of ammunition were subject to significant operational analysis, based on the specific missions and tasks that the UK forces were given. We compared our holdings with the Americans', and in many cases, to make sure we had sufficient reserves and echelons of capability, we took more than perhaps the OA had required.

Q660  Chairman: What were the assumptions? If you cannot tell us in open session, perhaps you will write to us. What were the assumptions on the number of sets of body armour, not the training protection, there was a lot took it with them, but what were the assumptions, would every soldier require some form of body armour, and, if so, were there enough sets available to them?

Brigadier Cowlam: I cannot answer that question.

Q661  Chairman: You cannot, or you have not that choice?

Brigadier Cowlam: No, I cannot. That is a slightly different assumption, that goes back to the sustainability statement, of the scaling of the force; we will have to look at what he said.

Q662  Chairman: But the difference, these days, between the front line and rear area is not as clear as it may have been in the past. I am just trying to find out whether, for instance, if you are guarding prisoners there, it might be desirable to fit your soldiers with the kind of body armour that might have been required much farther into the battle-field. So, you say this is not your job, your job is just to distribute it, it was not your job to - - -

Brigadier Cowlam: To specify what would be held, by whom.

Q663  Chairman: But, in your job, did you know how many sets were available?

Brigadier Cowlam: No; because there are sets held with each of the components and in the logistics component, and there will be Task Issues going in. But there was not a pool of body armour, albeit, as a result of the shortages which became apparent, we did cross-service and try to move around, to those under greatest threat, elements of body protection.

Chairman: I will not ask you who is the person we should contact, otherwise he will not like you very much, but certainly it is something, I think, that we ought to pursue further.

Q664  Mr Jones: Can I ask that question. In terms of logistics, obviously, I accept that not everything in the heat of war goes according to plan, in terms of logistics, in terms of what can be thrown aside, but we have had a lot of evidence from different people who were in theatre, including some of the press comments about, obviously, body armour, but shortages of boots, kit, and all these things. Was that the fact, that it was in theatre and it was not being distributed correctly, or was it a fact that it was not there anyway, or the right decisions had not been taken around what was actually needed?

Brigadier Cowlam: The latter.

Q665  Mr Jones: And who was responsible for that?

Brigadier Cowlam: It comes back to the assumptions that we were working on, and the fact that we deployed 45,000 people to the Gulf within 11 weeks, but our planning assumptions, which led to the holdings of desert combats, for examples, had been insufficient for what we were actually demanding. The idea that there were pools of surplus boots and desert combats lying in the desert, waiting to be distributed, is wrong; by definition, all urgent operational requirements are very much that, and we had separate systems to make sure that all UORs were extracted from the normal supply system and pushed forward as quickly as possible.

Q666  Mr Roy: Still on the same point. Would it surprise you to know that, on armed personnel vehicles, some soldiers were without armour, where other people still in the vehicle did have armour and actually had to take it off to give it to the first guy out of the door; would that surprise you?

Major General Brims: I can answer that question, because I was aware that we did not have the body armour, we did not think we had the body armour, where we wanted it, in all cases, so we did a major redistribution; and it is very hard to do a redistribution of body armour by size, by the different configurations, where the plates go in, whilst actually conducting an operation.

Q667  Mr Roy: But is it acceptable to you, if you have got five or six men in a vehicle, that two of those men, who are driving, for example, or whatever, in the front, who are not going out, they first have got to take them off, have got to give them to their colleagues, because those colleagues are the first people to open the door to go out; because that was what was happening?

Major General Brims: It is not acceptable, and I am not aware of that particular story, but I knew of certain things and I was taking action on stories, not as acute as the one you describe but I was aware of some.

Q668  Mr Jones: Air Marshal Burridge admitted that there were problems with the supply of ammunition in the field. Were you aware of any problems, for example, with helicopters that were going into the front line with very limited amounts of ammunition?

Brigadier Cowlam: No.

Major General Brims: No.

Q669  Mr Jones: If I told you that there were helicopters, and they were restricted to 400 rounds of ammunition, would that surprise you?

Brigadier Cowlam: I would be very surprised.

Q670  Mr Jones: So you were not aware that that actually happened?

Brigadier Cowlam: No.

Q671  Rachel Squire: Can I apologise for missing some of the earlier evidence, but I was on a Standing Committee dealing with the Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts Continuation Order, and the Armed Forces Review of Search and Seizure Orders; so not entirely unconnected with the day-to-day business of the Armed Forces. A lot of it has been covered, and some of it you may well have answered when I was not here, but can I focus my questions particularly to yourself, Brigadier Cowlam, as the Commander of the Logistics Brigade. My colleagues have just touched on the speculation on supplies not arriving in time and shortages of certain items. Can I just be clear whether you yourself would say there were very clearly shortages that you encountered, and, if so, what those were?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think the most significant shortage that I was aware of at the time was desert combats, which was a very emotive subject, quite reasonably. I was aware of the body armour shortage when we started the redistribution programme, and very much trying to find out where the body armours were, if they existed, and transferring them between components. There were a number of other, relatively minor shortages, but, in terms of key battle-winning equipment and spare parts, commodities, ammunition, for example, I am very surprised to hear what was said earlier. There was nothing significant which was causing a lot of friction within the system. I think there are plenty of anecdotal reports of this missing there and that missing here, but, in terms of significant shortages, General, you may be able to offer your perspective on that.

Major General Brims: I concur.

Q672  Rachel Squire: Can I then pick up on the comment you made, you compared holdings with the Americans'; can you specify whether you did rely on the American forces for any particular items?

Brigadier Cowlam: Not materiel, because our equipment is very different; for fuel, totally, all our fuel came through the Americans, our oils and lubricants we supplied ourselves. In the early stages, during the deployment, we relied on the Americans for feeding, and we used some of their contracts to support ourselves, in terms of accommodation, feeding. We asked them to provide some assistance in the very early stages over transportation, but then later in the campaign we returned the kind by moving fuel for them, moving some of their armour, 4th Infantry Division, when it arrived, accepting a lot of their prisoners of war, when they did not have a prisoner of war holding facility, accepting coalition casualties into our field hospitals. In the early stages, we were heavily dependent on the Americans, but mainly for domestic and administrative issues, but otherwise not for any, again, key battle-winning equipment, apart from fuel.

Q673  Rachel Squire: Can I ask you then, when the shortages you mentioned and any problems, which initially you immediately took action to try to overcome, were those regularly communicated further up the command structure, for instance, to General Brims or to the military personnel remaining in the UK?

Brigadier Cowlam: Yes. We had virtually daily meetings with the divisional staff, where divisional issues and concerns were exposed to us, and we had video television conferences, both to Qatar and also direct to PJHQ, and on those VDCs the front-line commands were on line, as were the DLO, and the central staffs in London, and the passage of information was very rapid, because it was through video, and it did not rely on a strict hierarchical passage of information flow. And so issues which were raised, and there was a multitude of issues, the priorities changed day by day, and certainly in the early stages, when we were first arriving, there was almost a different crisis every day; but, through assistance from our American colleagues and also assistance from the Permanent Joint Headquarters and their staff and the front-line commands, all the issues were resolved. I cannot think of a single ongoing problem, apart from the dreaded desert combat issue, and desert boots, which was something which we were not able to resolve, albeit some more quickly than others.

Q674  Rachel Squire: Then can I then pick up on, you mentioned information flow, and we heard from Air Marshal Burridge about problems there had been with the logistics tracking system, and he considered that was a weakness that needed to be addressed. Can you explain to the Committee how that manifested itself and how you dealt with it?

Brigadier Cowlam: Yes. I would endorse his comments totally. Questions which have already come up, how many suits were in theatre, and where were they, we do not have total asset visibility, and this is a limitation, because, of course, I cannot say with any confidence, at any one time, where things were. Equally, if we knew where everything in theatre was, at any particular time, and the condition it was in and what availability it had, it would make us much more efficient; and, compared with our American colleagues, we were the poor relation. That being said, we do have some limited systems, such as Vital, and towards the latter end of the deployment a radio frequency tagging system was introduced, but it was not to the level of detail and capability which perhaps we need. And I think this is going to be one of the biggest lessons, it is perhaps a lesson that we knew already, and I know already that the earlier lessons in the Department are reflecting the urgent need for this, not least because it will give us greater reliability, operational confidence, as well as efficiency downstream.

Q675  Mr Jones: Is it the case that the three Services use different systems?

Brigadier Cowlam: We are looking at a joint solution, absolutely.

Q676  Mr Jones: At the moment, do they use different systems?

Brigadier Cowlam: There are legacy systems. The formation of the Joint Logistics Component, the single purpose was to make sure that we take a joint approach, particularly to the line of communication, and what is now called the 'coupling bridge', to make sure that the three Services are not in competition with each other. And that was very much my role, to make sure that each of the three components, in accordance with the Joint Force Commander's priorities, was getting the supplies and the access through the supply chain. But the need for asset visibility is fundamental, and I think this will be one of the most significant lessons that we should learn.

Q677  Chairman: The technology is there, it is just that we have not got round to...

Brigadier Cowlam: We believe the technology is there. We introduced an urgent operational requirement to introduce radio frequency technology, it is a system very similar to the Americans'. Of course, we were trying to deliver it at the early stages of the campaign, just at the time that the Americans themselves were expanding their own capabilities.

Q678  Rachel Squire: So, again, leading on from that, you said clearly that you considered that one of the lessons learned is that need for improvement in the asset visibility, with logistics tracking systems, and so on; also you commented earlier about making assumptions more accurate, or trying to do that. Can you say any other key lessons that you have drawn so far from the operation, in terms of logistics support?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think the fundamentals of what we need and how we go about our business are sound, it is those systems that we need to put in place to solve the problems and solve the issues, because, as I said earlier, every day brings new problems. Total asset visibility, absolutely right, the assumptions, absolutely right, and probably the third is more reliable and greater capable capacity in our communications. We are heavily reliant on communications. We have some very good communications systems, but in this day and age we need more and we want more, and I think that, add total asset visibility with greater capacity communications, they will be a winning combination.

Q679  Rachel Squire: Thank you. One final, very specific question. Did you have adequate supplies of hand grenades?

Brigadier Cowlam: I cannot answer that question.

Major General Brims: Yes. I was never given any indication that we did not have.

Q680  Chairman: Because we were told by one witness that the Swiss refused to sell them to us, because they might be used for fighting purposes; you have not heard that?

Major General Brims: I have not, no.

Chairman: Would you check on it? I do not want this to be another urban myth, which it could be.

Mr Jones: Can we ask what Air Marshal Burridge told us, too?

Chairman: Yes, we did ask that; but if you could check with him, we would like to have a good answer. The Swiss did a Belgium on us, which we are still unfondly remembering. Right; on friendly fire.

Q681  Mr Roy: Gentlemen, are you satisfied with the way in which the IFF procedures for the coalition operations were agreed and then implemented between the UK and the United States?

Major General Brims: Clearly, there is an incident under investigation that would suggest to me that something went wrong at one stage; that will have to be investigated. What went wrong I do not know, but something has gone wrong.

Q682  Mr Roy: What did you do to protect British tanks, for example?

Major General Brims: To protect the tanks; every vehicle had a physical, optical marker on it, you have probably seen it on television, it was the left-hand arrow-head, everybody had that, top, front, bottom, side. Also we had a thermal panel that went on, so you could see it through the sights. And then, partly for protection but for other reasons, we had - - -

Q683  Mr Roy: Did the thermal panel go on all the equipment?

Major General Brims: I think certainly it would have been on all tanks, all the combat bits it was on. The Blue Force Tracker was the one which did not go on all the equipment, but the Blue Force Tracker was not just for identification of friend and foe, that was actually a situation so that people could see where obviously it had helped in the larger scale. It was designed to go on, I cannot remember, I think it went down to combat platoon level and some other, I cannot remember precisely, and it did not go on to every vehicle; it is an American system, actually they do not put it on every vehicle either.

Q684  Mr Roy: So the Americans should have been aware of everything that we had done. Again, just remind me, were the British and the US forces able to communicate with one another and with the aircraft?

Major General Brims: It would vary, it would vary depending on which bit you armed; and, with the aircraft, if it was an American aircraft, the principal communication, our communication, was through this Anglico organisation I mentioned earlier on, that was the principal one. And then the real way we did it, with the Americans, was by exchanging liaison officers; but it was only in the very early stages, in the, as it were, direct fire weapons platforms, were we closely integrated, because by about D plus 4 they were heading off up towards Baghdad.

Q685  Mr Roy: But they were not able to talk to each other directly, is that right, in layman's terms?

Major General Brims: Not in many cases; but it varies from type of thing to type of thing.

Q686  Mr Roy: I understand between the US and the UK, but how do the UK forces avoid engaging one another?

Major General Brims: There are technical means, and there are tactics and procedures, so there is a balance between both of those.

Q687  Mr Roy: And you were not aware of any problems?

Major General Brims: I most certainly was, yes; there have been problems, nobody would deny that, and those cases will be investigated, and we will continue to strive to make sure that the blue on blue, which is the way it is called, is minimised. And it is a combination of IFF using technical, scientific solutions, as they become available, and making sure that you are training your staff and using the tactic and techniques and procedures. Because, ultimately, even with a technical solution, humans make mistakes; and it is bad enough for the victim, but also it is awful for the human who makes the mistake.

Q688  Mr Roy: One very untechnical solution that we heard about was that we have been told that US forces were not issued with recognition charts for British vehicles, and, as a result, our force in the field had to attach reflective tapes to their vehicles to make them appear the same as the American vehicles at night. Were you aware of that?

Major General Brims: No. I think we are getting a bit confused. There are panels we put onto the vehicles which are designed to show up; those were coalition panels. We put them on our vehicles, the Americans put them on their vehicles, in a particular configuration; this is designed so that you can recognise them through a thermal-imaging sight, and you would recognise it, so we would recognise this panel if it was on an American or a British vehicle.

Q689  Mr Roy: So, as far as you are aware, the US did give out the recognition charts to their people, because that is not what we were told?

Major General Brims: As far as I am aware, but I did not go personally and inspect it.

Q690  Mr Roy: No, I would not expect you to do that, I would never expect you personally to do anything. I am not a big hard-man who thought it right to put you under pressure, so this is not personal at all. Ultimately, I am just asking it as a generalisation, because obviously, of course, the buck stops with you, with your decision-making, that is fair enough, and your good management skills. So I do not expect you to know everyone and going about and seeing every panel, but I would like just to find out the mind-set of what was being said, what was being thought, what was going to be done?

Major General Brims: Yes.

Q691  Mr Jones: Can I just nail another one of these urban myths that you can see floating around in parts of the press, and also, I think, various e-mails that certain of us have got, about individuals having to send home for large Union Jacks to be displayed on vehicles so that they would actually be recognised. One, are you aware of that happening; and, secondly, was it actually needed?

Major General Brims: I do not think it was needed. I was aware of the press report, subsequently.

Q692  Mr Jones: And did it actually happen then?

Major General Brims: I do not know. What I do know is that we have been very particular, talking about flags, not to fly the Union flag, and this was because, yes, we were invading a country but we were not occupying, we were not taking it, capturing it for the US, it was terribly important not to stick the Union flag in places, and we have been quite particular about that. But, probably, it is not accurate.

Chairman: We are coming to the end, but not quite.

Q693  Mr Roy: I just want to move on to near the end, which is obviously the post-conflict reconstruction. We heard that the forces on the ground under your command were too small to maintain security effectively after the initial combat phase was over. Would you agree or disagree with that?

Major General Brims: I do not know who said that. In the immediate period until I left, and I handed over command of the Division at about the same time as some of the early troops started to come back, there were not enough troops to have done a post-conflict activity in a particular way; again, one had to do things in the way you are dealt the cards. My judgment was that we needed to hand back Iraq to the Iraqis just as fast as possible, and my judgment was that we did not need to overengage and be appearing as an army of occupation, although, of course, technically we were, but to try to give them back not only their freedoms but their self-respect and their dignity. And that as soon as we can get their own institutions up and running, bottom-up, forming police forces, and so forth, and let them make the decisions, I felt that was the right way to go.

Q694  Mr Roy: Did you think the looting was going to be as widespread and as large, for example, as it was, or was that built into - - -

Major General Brims: The looting. I think that we anticipated there was going to be quite a bit of looting; the history, in that part of the world, unfortunately, it is the third time it has happened, so we anticipated some. And I think that when you have been brutalised to the degree that they have, and there was a certain amount of euphoria in it, what I think is, perhaps that element of looting which was actually criminal was a consequence of all the prisoners being let out of prison, and when the local people complained about it to me, I said, "Well you tell me who has been let out of prison, what the offence was and where they are." At the point at which I left, I regret to have to tell you, they had not answered any of those, few basic questions.

Q695  Mr Roy: Before that, when you were at the pre-conflict planning stage, did you think about the post-conflict plan?

Major General Brims: Yes, we did, and we did a lot of work, making sure that any humanitarian thing was attended to. In fact, people talked about phase three being the conflict and phase four being the post-conflict, we recognised, everything behind you, once you had gone into Iraq, was in phase four, post-conflict activity. And, therefore, you take somewhere like al Faw, that was captured on 20 March, that has been in post-conflict activity since 20 March, that was in our plan, and the same story for Umm Qasr, Amara, and so forth.

Q696  Mr Roy: At that stage, did you have to prepare the people under your command for those post-conflict duties, the humanitarian aid, the policing?

Major General Brims: We had to prepare them for it, but also we had to get the priorities right, because you could not have phase four unless you had had a successful phase three. So the phase three had to be the top priority for most of the combat troops, but not all. But we did lay a lot of plans, and some of the humanitarian, perhaps I could ask you.

Brigadier Cowlam: Yes; on the humanitarian side, we were not quite sure what situation we would find, therefore we tended to assume that there would be a significant humanitarian crisis. Also we believed that there would be a delay between us moving to phase three, rather than four, in some areas, and the ability of the international community and the NGOs to come into theatre, and therefore we produced a plan which would allow us to both procure and distribute humanitarian aid, in the early stages using totally military resources, but then using that as a foundation upon which the NGOs, the humanitarian aid agencies, can build upon. So we had plans to open the port, very quickly, for example; we hired additional vehicles to carry a lot of this humanitarian aid through southern Iraq. We knew that fresh water was a particularly valuable, important commodity, and therefore we hired civilian water trucks to allow us to distribute that; we planned and built the pipeline into Umm Qasr with fresh water. And so we had a plan to deal with a humanitarian crisis, both, one, because obviously it was necessary, but also, two, to support the GOC's plan of making sure that the Iraqi people saw the benefit of the coalition forces.

Q697  Mr Roy: And did the people under your command expect to have those tasks?

Brigadier Cowlam: I think they did, when the level of contingency planning developed that far. Of course, a lot of the soldiers, the vast majority, have got significant experience now of Bosnia and Kosovo, and that type of operation. And whilst, on the one hand, it was a new experience, going to Iraq, war-fighting, they did have some experience to draw on after the war-fighting was over, and they knew very quickly how they should behave and how they should act, and the way that we can contribute to the wider campaign objectives.

Q698  Mr Jones: Because I never give up, can I return now to the role of the media, and if the hammer and chisel do not work I will go and get a pneumatic drill. In terms of the media, and your impression of the media, how accurate a picture do you think that it painted actually of the operations that were under your command? And I wonder whether you can give us any thoughts you had on the role of embedded journalists, how it worked in practice, and any general thoughts you have? We have heard Air Marshal Burridge's very strong views on embedded journalists, could you give us your views?

Major General Brims: The embedded journalists were absolutely fine, from my point of view. I suppose, like everything, some people have a better feel for it than others, and that is true of all things. None of them let the side down, as far as we were concerned, that I am aware of, and MoD might know differently, but as far as I am concerned none of them did. And I used a spokesman at my level and talked to them on an all-day, daily basis, as it were, obviously I was in touch with the spokesman. I only engaged with them myself, live, as it were, quite sparingly. I did give them quite a lot of background briefings, to help them be able to report as best they could. If anything, I would say that, and I am operating with an awful lot of second-hand hindsight, what they were reporting, I do not know how it was presented from London or Washington, and therefore it is not necessarily the embedded media that is the bit that one should examine but how the various media outlets present things from their own home base.

Q699  Mr Jones: And, in terms of the embedded journalists you were dealing with, obviously you laid down certain rules and regulations about what they could report, what you were telling them and when it could be reported; on the whole, did they observe those, or did you have any incidences where you had to say to journalists, "I'm sorry, you can't do that"?

Major General Brims: The rules and regulations actually were laid down by the MoD, not by me, and they were pre-briefed when they came out. And there was one incident, and I cannot rightly remember the details, not a very serious breach, but somebody who had not been as precise as they should have been.

Q700  Mr Jones: So, I will try again. In terms of what you have seen since, I accept the point you are making about how pictures, etc., are reported when they get back to London, and the editing suites, etc., but, post-conflict, in terms of the descriptions and media reporting of the operation which you were commanding, how do you think that is actually being portrayed; accurately? You are on safe territory here. Air Marshal Burridge was very forthright in his views.

Major General Brims: I would have said, it is very difficult, looking at it second-hand, I did not see it at the time, very inaccurately.

Q701  Mr Jones: In what way, the analysis of pictures?

Major General Brims: The analysis. What I am told, by casual conversation, there are all sorts of things that just do not fit together.

Q702  Mr Jones: In what way?

Major General Brims: Because that was not the picture that I was looking at.

Q703  Mr Jones: Right; so it is the interpretation?

Major General Brims: It is the interpretation; it is not the report, it is the interpretation. But I do not know.

Brigadier Cowlam: The problem we have got is, we have no knowledge of how it was portrayed. I was surprised, as the General was, when we came back, how big an issue the whole thing was and how it dominated all your headlines and agendas for such a long period. We were very much inward-looking and not fully appreciative of what was going on, in reporting terms, around us.

Mr Jones: (I'll print out a squadron on that one ?)

Chairman: I think you were lucky, actually, we had to sit through it, and we saw the endless newspapers and television companies who had their own agenda, in which every single incident was either not reported, if it did not fit in with their framework, or it was misreported, and I found it quite difficult to read. So that was one advantage of being out of their influence. Others were very reputable, were very honest, were very fair, and they were the newspapers that one would read. General and Brigadier, thank you very much. I know, from the questioning, one might think actually you lost the war, because we did focus, as always, more on the negative side and almost took the positive side for granted. But one must say that the British performed as admirably as they have always done, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude, and we would like to express that through you, gentlemen, because we do owe them so much. And we deeply, deeply regret those families who have been bereaved, and that disaster yesterday means the war might have entered a new phase, it may not be called 'war' but it does not look quite like that to the families today. So thank you very much, and we will meet again, I am sure. Thank you.