Oral evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee on Wednesday 5 November 2003

Members present:

Mr Bruce George, in the Chair

Mr James Cran

Mike Gapes

Mr Dai Havard

Mr Kevan Jones

Mr Frank Roy

Rachel Squire

Mr Peter Viggers

__________

Witnesses: AIR MARSHAL GLENN TORPY, CBE, DSO, Deputy Commander in Chief Headquarters Strike Commander, and AIR COMMODORE CHRIS NICKOLS, Ministry of Defence, examined.

 

Q1232  Chairman: Welcome to you both. We have quite a hectic agenda, but we will finish at 12.30. The first question I would like to ask - and please do not feel you both have to answer: the RAF deployment was announced by the Secretary of State on 6 February. Can you give us some idea of when you first became involved in the planning for this deployment?

Air Marshal Torpy: Mr Chairman, before answering your question, I wonder if I may just introduce Air Commodore Nickols and explain why he is here and what his role in the operation was. He acted as my deputy. He went out to theatre about ten days before I went out to Saudi Arabia, and, during the actual combat phase of the operation, he was embedded in the Combined Air Operation Centre as one of the three CAOC directors, the other two being 1* Americans. For the whole of phase three, he was in detailed contact with exactly what was going on with the execution of the operation, and then he remained in theatre for three weeks after I left theatre to wrap the operation up. So he has the detailed knowledge of day-to-day execution as the operation took place.

Q1233  Chairman: You have prepared the way well, if you cannot answer the questions. I am afraid, Air Commodore Nickols, you are the fall-guy if there is no proper answer.

Air Marshal Torpy: Going back to your question, we first became involved in planning for the operation really in the summer of last year. That really came about because of our intimate involvement in the southern no-fly zone operations. Inevitably, because of the very close linkage between the RAF and the United States air force in the no-fly zone operations, we became aware that the Americans were starting to look at some contingency planning and we became involved in that at a very early stage. That matured over the autumn of last year.

 

Q1234  Chairman: I know this is a political decision but you are high enough up the hierarchy to be aware of the political constraints and political problems: How would you describe that phase? Because negotiations were going on through the United Nations: they were still hoping that Saddam would buckle under the pressure and that the French and Russians would do likewise in a rather different context. How would you call this period, as far as the RAF were concerned, when there was no deployment, no formal order to deploy, but you were given authority, I presume, by the Secretary of State to begin to precautionary measures by way of preparation should a decision be made?

Air Marshal Torpy: You are absolutely right, Mr Chairman, and I think that was only right and proper, given our ongoing operations in the southern no-fly zones. We always recognised that there would have to be some sort of transition from Operation Southern Watch into any subsequent operation if it materialised. So our involvement in that planning was, I believe, right and proper and it gave us visibility as to the way the US were thinking so that we could help to influence that thinking and inform London about exactly what was going on. It was always done with the US being absolutely clear that there was no commitment on the UK's behalf at that stage to commit forces to any sort of operation.

 

Q1235  Chairman: At what stage would you have been given the formal political decision: Now you can come out in the open, you can accelerate, you can deploy? What was that transitional phase in the timing? What happened differently from what had gone on before that now were able to do?

Air Marshal Torpy: You cannot pick a particular date to say that we transitioned from one set of planning to another. It was an evolutionary process. The plans clearly started to develop towards the end of last year and, if I recall, the Secretary of State announced on about 24 September that he felt that at that stage we should be entering into serious contingency planning with the United States. Parliament actually then agreed and we announced our full structure in, I believe, February of this year.

 

Q1236  Chairman: This is probably a difficult if not impossible question to answer, but what percentage of preparations and decisions had you made prior to go-ahead? Is it possible to give some sort of idea?

Air Marshal Torpy: No, because the plan evolved over those months in the latter part of last year and, indeed, even through January, February and the middle of March the detailed contingency campaign plan was still being developed, as it should, as we gained more knowledge of the intelligence that we were receiving and such like.

 

Q1237  Chairman: But you must have wanted to buy things. You did not really want to wait until you were given a formal order, because the procurement process can be rather protracted, as we all know to our cost. In this early stage, were you just saying, "I think we ought to get this because we might be needing it"?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think we were in very good shape on the air side. We had gone through a major upgrade of our GR4 Tornado, so the aircraft was in a much better condition, much more capable than it was during the first war; we had learned experience from the Kosovo campaign. Our weapons stocks, we had learned, again, the lessons from the Kosovo campaign: we had Enhanced Paveway stocks already on the shelf, we had Maverick. So, in general, we did not see a great need for a lot of additional work on our equipment which had to be done in those early stages of the planning.

 

Q1238  Chairman: When were the units first warned that they would be flying?

Air Marshal Torpy: Not really until the early part of this year, January/February.

 

Q1239  Chairman: There must be a decision -----

Air Marshal Torpy: There were certain people whom we brought into the planning. After the Secretary of State announced in September that we were doing contingency planning, then we brought our squadron commanders, our station commanders, into the planning that we had done at that stage, so that they could start preparing their training programmes, so the crews were as familiar as they needed to be for the particular style of operation.

 

Q1240  Chairman: In respect of each of the different components, how close to the limits of your total deployable capability did this deployment take you?

Air Marshal Torpy: On the air side, we had a significant proportion of our high readiness forces deployed. As always, the ones which were under most demand were our support elements and things like the air transport force, the air-to-air refuelling assets, the RAF regiments. Headquarters and such like are the ones which are always most stressed. The front line elements, we deployed what we thought was a sustainable force package, which, we negotiated with the Americans, would provide capability which either they were short of or they did not have in sufficient numbers to execute the campaign plan. I would pick out, in particular, bits of the force structure. Our E3D Sentry aircraft. We deployed four of those: they filled one of the four orbits 24-hours a day for the whole of the campaign; a significant stress on the overall E3 capability of the coalition. Our air-to-air refuelling capability. We deployed both VC10s and Tristars; about 40 per cent of the offload from those aircraft went to the US marine corps or the US navy - and if I pick out one capability which constrained the air campaign, it was the availability of air-to-air refuelling aircraft. Our precision capability, the Americans were very keen to have. That was on the GR4 Tornado, the Harrier -----

 

Q1241  Chairman: I imagine you were pretty keen to have them after Kosovo.

Air Marshal Torpy: Exactly. And the addition of Enhanced Paveway brought really a very significant capability. The addition of Storm Shadow was a capability that the Americans were very attracted to because they did not have the hard penetration capability that that weapon had, so it was one of ours that we employed to accelerate that programme. Our intelligence, surveillance and recognisance capability, with the maritime Nimrod MR2, with our camera - and of course all of our tactical platforms, GR4 Tornado, Harrier and Jaguar have a tactical recognisance capability of which the Americans are in short supply. Our inter-theatre lift was obviously provided by C17, Tristar, VC10 and C130s. And the RAF regiment committed to protecting the various deployed operating bases either with field squadrons or with rapier as well on one particular base.

 

Q1242  Chairman: It seems to me, despite the whingeing, that you came out pretty well from the Strategic Defence Review.

Air Marshal Torpy: We had learned the lessons from Kosovo, in particular, and I think from the first Gulf war. As a consequence, we had adjusted our force structure, procured equipment which we knew we would need for the future - I am not saying we have everything we would like - and if I look at the force structure across our front line at the moment, I think it is pretty coherent. The capability we delivered to the coalition was coherent and the capabilities which we are getting in the near future, like ASSTA, will bring even greater coherency to the air force structure.

 

Q1243  Chairman: Commodore Nickols, did he do okay?

Air Commodore Nickols: Yes.

 

Q1244  Chairman: I do not want to side-line you in this.

Air Commodore Nickols: No.

Air Marshal Torpy: Chairman, there is possibly one thing else I should add: it was not just equipment we provided to the coalition; it was obviously staff people into the Combined Air Operation Centre. My own headquarters, which was just over 200 people, an element of that was UK personnel who filled embedded positions in the Combined Air Operation Centre, like Air Commodore Nickols, but we held a number of senior posts within the organisation which gave us (a) influence and (b) visibility. Then the remainder of my headquarters was looking after sustainment and national business within the component.

 

Q1245  Mr Viggers: The United States Air Force was able to use B1s and B52s on very long range missions, but of course most of our air systems were quite close to the theatre operations. I want to ask some questions about ground support. Obviously there must have been difficulties because the original plan had you going in using assets in Turkey which were later denied. Can you sketch out the problems this caused you?

Air Marshal Torpy: As you rightly say, on the initial planning we were certainly looking at a major element of force planning from the north. That was (a) to fix the Republican Guard divisions in the north, it was also to give the Iraqi regime an additional problem to think about. When the Turkish parliament looked as though it would have difficulty being able to approve a coalition presence in Turkey, we decided, at a stage we felt was the last possible safe moment, to look at whether we could fit those resources, air assets, into the south. With a lot of help and negotiation with the American air force, we managed to secure basing at places where they had assets so we could secure places in the south. It clearly involved some re-planning from swinging our major effort from the north to the south, but, because of the relationship we had with the United States air force, we managed to do that relatively easily and, with the help of the host nations as well, we managed to get all of our assets which we had designed into our force package, we managed to find basing for all those around the region.

 

Q1246  Mr Viggers: Were there problems with over-flight rights?

Air Marshal Torpy: There is always a certain amount of time to gain diplomatic clearance. It varies from country to country. It always takes to make sure that you plan sufficiently far in advance, to take into account the period of time that you need for that diplomatic clearance. It would be very nice to think that every country had exactly the same amount of time to gain diplomatic clearance and we could do it in a shorter time, but the reality of it is that that has to be taken into account in deployment planning.

 

Q1247  Mr Viggers: This was a coalition operation. There were some areas in which we relied on allies, the United States in particular. Did that cause problems in terms of accommodation, food and so on?

Air Marshal Torpy: No, the American air force were very helpful in providing and enabling some of our deployed operating bases. We had eight deployed operating bases in the region in a variety of different countries. A combination of the help the American air force gave us, our ability to go out to contract in the host nations, and also the assistance that the host nations provided us with really enabled us to set up the deployed operating bases in very short order. I think we learned a lot from the experience of Exercise SAIF SAREEA two years prior to that in the way that we went about setting up the air component and commanding the air component.

 

Q1248  Mr Viggers: How did the accommodation and food of our forces compare with our allies, particularly the Americans?

Air Marshal Torpy: We had a spectrum of accommodation, some of which was tented from contractors, some of which was semi-hard wall Portakabin-style accommodation. In broad order I would compare it as very similar. In many cases it was American tentage, so I think there was a broad equivalence there. In terms of food, I think our food was significantly better, and it was one of the huge morale boosters for our personnel - and, indeed, the Americans who used to come and eat in our food facilities.

 

Q1249  Chairman: As opposed to the squaddies having to cadge food off the Americans in the army, so we have been told. You must be quite pleased with yourselves.

Air Marshal Torpy: We were fortunate, I think.

 

Q1250  Mr Viggers: I was not on a particular visit when other members of the Committee were told that the conditions really were not very good, the food was very poor indeed for some period, and that this derived from a contractual problem because the food had been provided by a contractor working for the Americans and there was no direct contractual relationship. Those who were present at RAF Odiham would be better informed than I, but I was told there was a problem.

Air Marshal Torpy: There were clearly different arrangements at different bases. On some bases the food was provided by RAF personnel, UK personnel; on other bases we relied on the US to provide food. I cannot speak on that particular instance but there is no doubt that there is a difference between food that the UK provides its personnel when we are producing that food and what the US provide for their personnel. If we are sitting under their umbrella, that affects us in the same manner.

 

Q1251  Mr Viggers: Were there any spares problems for the aircraft as a result of the changed plans for deployment?

Air Marshal Torpy: In general, I was fairly pleased ... In fact I was pleased with (a) the serviceability of our aircraft and (b) the spares support as well. We historically, through our operations in no-fly zones, have worked out a method of re-supplying those aircraft, particularly at bases which we have been at for a long period, and we have learned a lot, having operated aircraft for 12 years in a desert environment, about the way we need to service aircraft to maintain their serviceability rates. In general, I would always like slightly better serviceability out of my aircraft, but it was more than adequate to support the level of activity to which we were committed on the air tasking order.

 

Q1252  Mr Viggers: I believe the original plan was to base Jaguar recognisance aircraft in Turkey. When that became impossible, how did you get round that problem?

Air Marshal Torpy: We tried to see if we could actually find some additional bed-down space in the south of Iraq, in southern countries. It proved impossible and we basically took a judgment as to the need for those recognisance assets and whether we would need to displace some other resources. In the end our judgment was, given the tactical recognisance assets that we had, in terms of the RAPTOR pod on our Tornado GR4, which was excellent and was brought in only a year before, plus the assets that the US navy and the US air force had, that there were sufficient tactical resources at that particular phase in the operation to support the campaign plan. Subsequently, at the end of the combat phase, we introduced onto both the Tornado GR4 and also onto the Harrier, the Jaguar recognisance pod, which we had always planned to do in the longer term but we accelerated that programme by the end of the campaign.

 

Q1253  Mr Viggers: Were there any other major procurement issues or training issues which you learned as a result of the campaign which you are now addressing?

Air Marshal Torpy: There is no doubt that we need to do more air-land integration. It is something that we knew about at least 18 months before we started this operation, and it was work that we had in hand: improving the procedures; looking at our equipment - Did we have the right equipment to execute close air support and also killbox interdiction? - in the light of the lessons from Kosovo and increasingly the lessons out of Afghanistan, which we had seen the Americans employ. So there was a lot of work ongoing and I still believe there are lots of lessons that we have learned out of this particular campaign in terms of the core skill that air-land integration should form for all of our fastjet aircraft.

 

Q1254  Mike Gapes: Would you tell us something about the command and control arrangements and how you operated as a national contingency commander of air forces which were fully integrated into a coalition?

Air Marshal Torpy: Obviously the first thing - and I know the Committee will be aware of this - we had a very established command and control relationship with the United States air force as a result of the no-fly zone operations, and we were really building on exactly that structure. What had changed was the creation of an in-theatre UK joint headquarters with Air Marshal Burridge as the National Contingent Commander. He had operational control of all of the UK assets committed to the operation. I had tactical command of all of the air assets, which basically meant that I allocated UK resources to specific tasks and I then gave tactical control of those assets for the execution of a particular task to the United States 3* air component commander. My job, I believed, was: in the initial part, to establish the force; during the execution phase, to ensure that the UK forces were used as effectively and efficiently as possible, that operations were conducted as safely as possible, given that it was a combat operation, and that they were conducted legally and within the constraints of UK policy; and then, after the combat phase, to bring it home.

 

Q1255  Mike Gapes: Would it be correct, to summarise that, that in effect you were second in command to the American commander?

Air Marshal Torpy: No. The air component was commanded by a 3* American air force commander. The deputy combined air operations force commander was a US navy 2*. We then had, underneath that, effectively three 1* officers, of which Air Commodore Nickols was one, who oversaw the day-to-day execution of the plan. Then, underneath that, the headquarters staff, as I have described, with embedded UK staff within that. I sat alongside and had detailed conversations throughout every single day with General Moseley, on the plan, the execution of the plan, but my own headquarters (looking after UK national business and making sure that we had the wherewithal visibility to ensure that our resources were being used effectively, safely and legally) sat alongside the CAOC star structure.

 

Q1256  Mike Gapes: I am interested that you have used the word "legal". Clearly the process of making sure that we get legal and political clearance approval for particular targeting decisions is a very important one. Was that very time-consuming?

Air Marshal Torpy: Inevitably targeting assumes a very high percentage of our active day-to-day activity. The whole process of constructing an air tasking order, which effectively coordinates the activity for a 24-hour period, starts three days in advance of the execution cycle, where you develop strategy, you connect that strategy to particular tasks, and then you have to construct how are you actually going to fly, deconflict, 2500 aircraft missions in a particular 24-hour period. Targeting flows throughout that process. We had what I believe was an excellent targeting directive from the Ministry of Defence which gave me very clear guidance as to my level of delegation. If a target fell outside my level of delegation, I forwarded it to Air Marshal Burridge in the National Contingent Headquarters. If it fell out of his delegation, it was forwarded to the PGHQ, and possibly onwards to the Ministry of Defence if it needed higher authorisation. It was a very well tried and tested system which we had used day-to-day in the southern no-fly zones. What was different was that we were given greater delegation on this occasion because we knew the tempo of the operation would demand decisions to be taken quickly and I could not go right the way back through the process, back to the PGHQ and the MOD, which we could do when we had the luxury of time for our southern no-fly zone operations.

 

Q1257  Mike Gapes: You said you started three days in advance. Could it actually take three days before you were able to make a decision at the end?

Air Marshal Torpy: No. I am sorry, maybe I did not explain myself particularly well. In constructing the whole plan for a 24-hour period, we start the planning process three days before. I could get a response, for a target for which I did not hold the delegation, very quickly, either from the National Contingent Commander ... There were certain targets we knew we would have to strike very quickly and which would probably fall out of my delegation - what were called "time-sensitive targets".

 

Q1258  Mike Gapes: What do you mean by "very quickly"?

Air Marshal Torpy: Minutes.

 

Q1259  Mike Gapes: Were there ever occasions where the need for political clearance of an individual target was in conflict with the operational requirements?

Air Marshal Torpy: Not to my knowledge, because those targets which we knew would demand scrutiny by the Ministry of Defence were targets which were so significant that we had thought about the clearance well in advance and where they sat in the campaign plan.

 

Q1260  Mike Gapes: What kind of targets were they?

Air Marshal Torpy: They were command and control targets which were likely to cause a significant amount of collateral damage, either in terms of damage to infrastructure, civilian infrastructure, or civilian casualties.

 

Q1261  Mike Gapes: Mainly because of their location in cities.

Air Marshal Torpy: Correct.

Chairman: James Cran.

 

Q1262  Mr Cran: Thank you very much, Chairman. First Reflections, a document which I am sure you have read and to which may even have contributed, for all I know, made it very clear that a key element in the overall performance of British air forces was the "considerable experience of coalition operations with the US in the Gulf region". I wonder if you would talk us through that and say why that is important.

Air Marshal Torpy: To those people who are not familiar with air operations, I think it sometimes comes as a surprise at their very high level of integration. We have - and we have had ever since we started operations under the NATO umbrella in the Cold War - packages of aircraft flying around the skies, where we would have, for instance, RAF Tornados flying with American fighters, being controlled by an American E3D, talking to maybe British controllers on the ground. So it is a very sophisticated and highly coordinated exercise. Trying to bring aircraft together in the same piece of sky and then putting a package of aircraft against a particular target needs very close coordination. Air is also used across the battle space according to the priorities of the overall commander, and, as a consequence of that, it is impossible to say we are going to use UK air in this particular area of Iraq. It is spread. Our particular capability may be used in a particular 24-hour period in one particular part of Iraq in a particular time as well. So it needs very close coordination. As a result of that requirement, from our experience in NATO, then our experience in the first Gulf war, then in Kosovo, all the exercises that we have done on a very, very regular basis with the United States' air force, we have forged a very close relationship at every single level, from the 4* level right down to the pilots on the front line. We understand and we try wherever possible to make sure that our doctrine is exactly the same and wherever possible we are inter-operable in terms of equipment, communications and also the mindset of the way that we approach a problem as well. Where there are likely points of conflict, my job, as the UK Air Contingent Commander, was to make sure that I highlighted those to the American 3* and we made sure we could work round them. Targeting is one of those issues on which there will inevitably be conflicts, because there could be subtle differences between the delegation that he is given and the one that I am given, and we needed to make sure that we both understood where that friction may occur.

 

Q1263  Mr Cran: With the exception of targeting which you have just explained, do you feel there were any areas where the level of integration was not as high as it might have been? You have already given the general picture, put against that the particular, would you have any comments to make?

Air Marshal Torpy: No, I think across all of the roles we used the same procedures, the same doctrine - except for very minor differences and for good reasons. I have touched already on air-land integration and the American air force had exactly the same experience that we had had as well, and we are now working very closely with our American colleagues to see how we can improve that level of integration, improve the procedures, improve the training. So I think the lessons are exactly the same for all of us.

 

Q1264  Mr Cran: Because there is a likelihood that the Americans will be involved in quite a lot of future actions, such as the one we are talking about, your view is that a pre-requisite of being able to take part in that is the sort of integration you are talking about. Do I deduce from what you have said that there are not many countries that do have that close level of integration with American practice other than ourselves and maybe one or two others?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think that is very fair comment. Indeed, we are very conscious that we are likely to lose the opportunity that we have had for the last 12 years to fly so closely alongside the American air force in the no-fly zones and somehow we have to replace that opportunity with mutual training opportunities, be it in Europe, be it in the United States.

 

Q1265  Mr Cran: And that is actively being pursued?

Air Marshal Torpy: That is actively being pursued.

Mr Cran: Thank you.

 

Q1266  Mr Viggers: The degree of integration you describe is very impressive. May I ask how a nation which is not an integrated military structure, namely France, would integrate in this manner? Could you comment on the practical effects of not being an integrated military structure?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think on the command and control side it makes life slightly more difficult. There is no doubt that we benefited not just in terms of our structures but also in terms of our personal relationships with senior American air force officers, most of us have known each other for many years, from when we were young pilots, squadron commanders, base commanders, and that has been very helpful. But on a tactical level, in terms of physically flying together, because of our NATO experience and because in the air NATO doctrine is very similar, if not exactly the same, as the RAF doctrine and the United States air force doctrine, then we rarely have any difficulty in operating other nations' air forces in an integrated package of aircraft. I think Kosovo is a prime example of that, where we had actually very little difficulty integrating a large number of different air forces together in a very complex air operation. In general, I think air is better placed than the other two environments by dint of the character of our operations and the highly integrated nature of our operations.

 

Q1267  Mr Viggers: That is the positive side. I am interested in the negative side as well. What is the practical implication of not being an integrated military structure from the air point of view?

Air Marshal Torpy: I do not think there are many disadvantages, to be quite honest, in that we still have regular exercises with, for instance, the French air force, with the other NATO nations. As I have said, I think at a tactical level, we do not have any difficulty in doing that. We make sure we maintain our links with a variety of different European air forces to make sure that, if there are subtle differences between our doctrine, we understand where those differences are. When it comes to planning an operation, we have done it under a NATO umbrella and we understand the potential problems that that may or may not introduce. When it comes to a coalition of the willing - which is effectively what we were operating under in these particular circumstances - it requires nations to be integrated into the command structure as comprehensively as possible, so that they can contribute and have visibility of the planning and the execution of the operation. I think we saw that during Operation Enduring Freedom, where nations were invited down to Headquarters Centcom in Tampa to make sure that people had visibility of how the planning and execution was going to be conducted and how it was conducted.

Air Commodore Nickols: May I just add, I think, outside the NATO arena, a classic example of that is Australia. Really the air environment, while it is not worldwide, most of the procedures are very similar, and it is not difficult to integrate into a coalition for a nation like that.

Chairman: Thank you.

 

Q1268  Mr Roy: Can we turn now to aspects of the campaign itself. We know that the initial stages of an air campaign would normally be aimed at suppressing enemy's air defences. However, it was slightly different in Iraq, in the sense of the timing. Were there problems because the ground campaign had started so quickly?

Air Marshal Torpy: This was, I think, one of the major evolutions in the campaign plan. When we started doing the initial plan, we constructed it in a similar manner to the scene during the first Gulf war and during Kosovo, with a discreet phase, in which air was going to be used to shape the battle space so that it would set conditions for the land component and the maritime component as well. As we developed our thinking, gained more intelligence, there was a shortening of that phase and it came down in the early part of this year from approximately 16 days down to a matter of five days. I think that was driven even closer together, as we got closer to the likelihood of the operation being executed, for three factors really. First of all, there was a growing realisation that we needed to secure southern oil fields as swiftly as possible to prevent any subsequent damage, because we always realised that the southern oil fields were going to be key to the long-term future of Iraq. There was a nervousness by the American land component and by General Franks over the vulnerability of having a very large land contingent in a fairly small area in Kuwait and the likelihood of a threat from Iraqi forces, possibly an asymmetric threat. Also, I believe that General Franks felt that if he had the ability to synchronise the components together as comprehensively and coherently as possible then he would have the highest possible chance of dislocating the regime as swiftly as possible and getting the campaign over and done with as quickly as possible. As I say, as our thinking matured and as the plan developed, we believed that we could bring what was commonly known as A&G day closer and closer together. We also always need to remember that the enemy have a vote in this and you have to be able to respond to something the enemy does, and that is exactly what we did in those last two days.

 

Q1269  Mr Roy: You started by describing it as the evolution of the campaign. Would that evolution have been different if the Iraqis had a more sophisticated air defence system? Would you have been allowed to carry on the way you did?

Air Marshal Torpy: That would certainly have had to be factored into our thinking. The risk of bringing A&G day together basically left the air component with five simultaneous tasks and there then would have to be a prioritisation on resources. The five tasks really were: to counter the theatre of ballistic missile threat throughout Iraq, particularly to the west; to service the strategic attack targets (which were deemed to be those targets which were most likely to deliver the regime downfall as quickly as possible) and the security forces command - so command and control in general; to secure air superiority as quickly as possible, and that meant we had to prevent the Iraqi air force from flying; to reduce the effectiveness of the integrated air defence system; to support the land component with his operation against the oil fields, and we also had to degrade the Republican Guard divisions, so that once the land component started his move towards Baghdad, momentum would not be halted as he proceeded towards Baghdad; and then, finally, we had to support special forces' activity throughout Iraq as well. So the air component's nervousness in compressing the campaign, was (a) would he have the resources to carry out those tasks? and (b) would he be able to execute, for instance, gaining air superiority in sufficient time for him to be able to do some of the other tasks?

 

Q1270  Mr Roy: Were any of you surprised that the Iraqi air force did not deploy? Do you think you prevented them flying or do you think another decision was made by the Iraqis? I do not want you claiming some honour that you did not really deserve here! Did they decide they just were not going to deploy?

Air Marshal Torpy: To be quite honest, we still do not know. I think we were surprised that they did not fly at all. We had a very robust air defence plan in anticipation that they may fly. We also had a very robust plan to keep closed those air fields from which we knew they were likely to operate as well. They had also obviously been watching the way we had been operating in the no-fly zones for 12 years, so they had a good knowledge of our capability and they inevitably also knew what we had brought into theatre as well.

 

Q1271  Mr Roy: What difference would it have made if they had deployed?

Air Marshal Torpy: I do not think a lot would have been different. Part of the plan was a significant amount of effort in making sure that the five main airfields were going to be closed. We achieved that on the first night. As I say, we also had a very robust defensive counter air plan, with fighters deployed 24 hours in the day to ensure that, if an aircraft did fly, we would be able to make sure it did not fly for very long.

 

Q1272  Mr Roy: This campaign obviously was a significant effort by yourselves and by the people you command. I know the RAF flew 2,500 sorties. Did you have sufficient aircrew?

Air Marshal Torpy: We did have sufficient aircrew. When we go into combat operations, we work on the premise that we need 2:1 manning, and that is in our defence planning assumptions.

 

Q1273  Mr Roy: That is 2:1 aircrew?

Air Marshal Torpy: That is correct. But we also put some military judgment on that, knowing what the campaign plan is, the likely rate of effort, we may say, "Actually, our judgment is we do not need quite as many as that," or, indeed, "We may need more than that." Broadly speaking, though, on our tactical platforms, like tornados and harriers, our manning was 2:1.

 

Q1274  Mr Roy: On the significant effort, was the operational tempo affected by an manning shortages?

Air Marshal Torpy: Not at all, and the whole way that we constructed our force structure was to make sure that it was sustainable, in material terms and in personnel terms as well. We clearly have a say in how often our aircraft are tasked on the air tasking order. We know the tasks which are out there, we know what capabilities are most needed, and we pace the use of those aircraft to make sure that we can sustain them over a long period.

 

Q1275  Mr Roy: On the subject of pace - and I am sorry to hypothetical - how long could you have sustained that campaign you were carrying out?

Air Marshal Torpy: As long as it was required.

Q1276  Chairman: Come on.

Air Marshal Torpy: I mean, in all seriousness ----

 

Q1277  Chairman: You have been attending the Simon Webb school of evasion and obfuscation.

Air Marshal Torpy: No, we had looked at the plan and we had said, "We may have to conduct this operation for six months." We were more than able to sustain our level of activity over that period.

 

Q1278  Mr Roy: That is slightly more clear. What are the long term implications of the current manning state?

Air Marshal Torpy: I am not quite sure I understand your question.

 

Q1279  Mr Roy: With regards to the tempo, for example, you said how long it could last. I am trying to think long term.

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes. We are obviously in the recuperation phase at the moment. We only have a small number of aircraft committed to the operation at the moment, so we are able to reconstitute fairly swiftly. In terms of our operational capability, we are virtually now at the stage we were before the start of the campaign. The only thing we are looking to do now is to replenish weapons' stocks.

 

Q1280  Mr Roy: When were you at this stage?

Air Marshal Torpy: I could say we are at the same stage now except for our weapons' stocks. In term of the capability of crews, state of the aircraft, they are in exactly the same state that they were prior to the start of the campaign.

 

Q1281  Mr Roy: And then the weapons' stock ...?

Air Marshal Torpy: I would have to provide the Committee with a note exactly on time scales for the weapons' stocks replenishment.

 

Q1282  Chairman: In terms of your intelligence - and obviously this is a sensitive area - can you tell from your satellite recognisance whether an air force is going to come out and fight or not?

Air Marshal Torpy: I regret, no you cannot. We obviously kept very close track on where his aircraft were. We knew - coming back to one of my original answers - at which air fields the preponderance of these aircraft were located and those are the ones in which we took particular interest. But you had very little knowledge of his intent. So the threat really is two components. It is the capability - well, we knew where the aircraft were, we knew the capability of the aircraft from our experience of the no-fly zones in the first Gulf war - but the intent piece is always very difficult to judge. So satellite imagery, tactical recognisance imagery, does not give you the complete picture, Mr Chairman.

 

Q1283  Chairman: In the last Gulf war - the last but one, should I say, Gulf war - in which you were a participant, the Iraqi air force solved that problem by getting the hell out of the way and ending up in Iraq. Were there any signs over the years of an upgrading of their air force, in the same way that we had done post Kosovo? Had they acquired any new aircraft? Was there an indication of what you were likely to face if it did come out to fight, that you would be facing more or less the air force that you faced in 1991, or did you think they may have some surprises up their sleeve?

Air Marshal Torpy: I do not think we felt that on the air side there were going to be any great surprises. We had a pretty good indication of how much training they had been doing and the sort of training that they had been conducting. So I think we had a pretty good idea of what their likely capability was on their aircraft. We had also clearly had a fair amount of experience of operating against their integrated air defence system. We did know that they had been clever in adapting equipment over the period to make it more difficult and then more successful against our aircraft; for instance, using optical tracking and such like, rather than radar tracking. So there were certain areas where we knew they were quite clever, and they were also quite good at moving equipment around and resetting it up, which was going to make our life more difficult. But, overall, I think we had a fairly good handle on their overall capability. We were always worried about a potential asymmetric threat.

 

Q1284  Chairman: I suppose burying aircraft is a pretty clever way of obscuring their intentions. How do you recover an aircraft if you bury it? Is it possible? I cannot even repair my own car, but it must be quite tricky reactivating an aircraft you have dug a big hole for.

Air Marshal Torpy: You are absolutely right, Mr Chairman, and certainly we would never be able to recover an aircraft which we had done that to, I do not think.

 

Q1285  Mr Roy: That is reassuring, anyway.

Air Marshal Torpy: We do not really understand their motives for doing that.

 

Q1286  Chairman: How many did they bury?

Air Marshal Torpy: I do not know the exact detail. We could let you know.

Chairman: Thank you.

 

Q1287  Mr Roy: If you find out any more, could you let us know. Could I come back to the point you were making about the operational tempo, and in particular ask you about the supporting aircraft, the helicopters, especially the early warning E3D Sentries. Would they have been able to keep the operational tempo going that they had, for example, over a six-month period? Or were they particularly stretched?

Air Marshal Torpy: There were certainly certain assets - and you have picked on one, the E3D - which were flying at very high rates. We were in the process, as the campaign started to reach its conclusion, of looking at bringing more crews into theatre. It was a crew-limiting factor rather than an airframe-limiting factor because, inevitably, when you are flying or manning one orbit 24 hours a day then -----

 

Q1288  Mr Roy: That is your stretching point.

Air Marshal Torpy: It is, exactly. There was that particular asset ... I think that was the main one where we had worries.

 

Q1289  Mr Roy: Were there any other ones that were not main ones?

Air Marshal Torpy: No. E3.

Chairman: Thank you. I am sure that Mr Havard, a fellow Welshman, will advise you on the dangers of underestimating a weak opponent, Air Marshal. I am not sure whether the conflict in Iraq will be like the conflict down under! I will call my fellow Celt.

 

Q1290  Mr Havard: Thank you very much for the introduction, Chairman. Yes, we know something about tribal problems in South Wales. There is one every 150 yards! Anyway, if we talk about targeting, and I would like to deal a little more with that. We understand, I think, from what you have said today and previously about the central process of targeting at a very high level, the procedures and so on, and the people at Tampa and Centcom and so on, and the influence the British had in terms of the direction for targeting, particularly precision munitions. But I would like to ask you, first of all, the declaration we have heard both initially and in First Reflections was that every care that would be taken was taken in targeting processes and selection of weapons to minimise incidental civilian harm. The targeting process that you deployed was apparently against the Iraqi regime, the military regime's capability, rather than the Iraqi people. In minimising this incidental civilian harm, how successful was that? Also, on what basis did you assess this success rate?

Air Marshal Torpy: You are absolutely right, one of the main underpinning objectives of the campaign was to make sure that we minimised damage to civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties as well. We are only allowed to attack a military target. When we look at a target and as to whether we are allowed to attack it, that is our first question in our mind: Is it a military target? We then have to go through the process of proportionality. There will be in some cases the risk of damaging civilian structures which may be near that military target; there may be a risk of killing civilians who may be close to that particular target. We have to then balance the military worth of that target against the potential for civilian collateral damage. That is a judgment that we have to make. As a result of that, to help us in those deliberations, we have certain delegations. - that is why I say there were certain delegations that I had. If the level of collateral damage was likely to be above my delegation, it had to go up to different levels, but to assist me I always had a lawyer and I also had a political advisor to make sure that between us we came to an agreed position on a particular target. We did that for fixed targets and we did that for time-sensitive targets as well. So there was a desk in the Combined Air Operation Centre which dealt with every time-sensitive target, and these were targets which would appear very frequently, you would maybe have to attack them within minutes, and the person who was taking a judgment on that particular target always had a lawyer sitting next to him 24 hours a day.

 

Q1291  Mr Havard: How successful was it? How do you assess it on the ground, in terms of how you assess success?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think we were highly successful. I think the reason for that is the increase in the use of precision munitions. We have seen, in this particular campaign, from a coalition perspective 70 per cent of the weapons were actually precision guided; from the air force side 85 per cent of our weapons were precision guided - a lesson we learned from Kosovo, and I think that trend will improve and increase in future years. I think we were highly successful in that respect. Inevitably, there will be some weapons' failures and there is then a risk of collateral damage. I believe we had very few of those particular sorts of incidents - and I think, if we had, the Iraqi regime would have been very quick to tell us about them or the media would have been very quick to tell us about them.

 

Q1292  Mr Havard: Presumably you had other methods of assessing ----

Air Marshal Torpy: We clearly did.

 

Q1293  Mr Havard: -- rather than the Iraqi media.

Air Marshal Torpy: Clearly we do. One of the major parts of the whole execution cycle is to assess the effect that you have had against a particular target, and battle damage assessment is a key element of that, so that you can change the campaign plan when you know that you have created the effect that you want to achieve, and, against a particular target, that you do not have to revisit that target.

 

Q1294  Mr Havard: I was not on this visit but one of my colleagues went to Cottesmore and had discussions with people there. This concept of the killbox that you mentioned earlier. I am interested that we had described to us this process of precision, in terms of targeting for precision weapons to be delivered and so on, and yet it seems as though something approaching 40 per cent of the missions of these people were pre-authorised, and something running at almost one in five were on this wonderful thing (which in polite society is probably called "KI-CAS" but which no doubt they called "KIC-AS" - and I am sure the Americans liked that), this Killbox for Close Air Support. How do you square a situation where somebody has, if you like, roving authority to go and kill whatever comes in front of him against this precision targeting process?

Air Marshal Torpy: Killbox Interdiction and Close Air Support is what KI-CAS stands for. there are two discreet, different bits to this. Close Air Support is when air is used when forces on the ground are in close contact and need the air support quickly. Killbox interdiction is a more methodical way of attacking targets in a particular areas. A killbox is an area which has been defined. Aircraft are tasked into that area to attack mobile targets - so fielded artillery tanks and those sort of targets. I gave very clear directions to my pilots as to what their responsibilities were and inevitably it has to be a pilot responsibility to identify that target as a military target. He also, in his own mind, has to go through exactly the same procedure that I go through for a fixed target; that is, Is it proportionate? If I am going to attack that particular tank, is there a risk of collateral damage, damage to buildings or civilian casualties? If he judged that the military worth of that target is not sufficient, then he does not attack that target. I think our crews are extremely disciplined in that respect. As a consequence, inevitably weapons are brought back from those sort of missions because either the target is not identified or the pilot is not happy that he can positively identify the target or he could drop the weapon within the collateral damage constraints.

 

Q1295  Mr Havard: The information I have is that something like five per cent came back because they were not happy with what they had as a target - they aborted the mission and came back.

I understand what you have just described but what is concerning me is that they are saying that in only six per cent of missions did they actually speak with someone on the ground. This will come in as something we will discuss later on in terms of friendly fire potential incidents. This puts a huge burden on the individual flying the aircraft, if their intelligence from the ground is effectively nil in the circumstances you have just described.

Air Marshal Torpy: If I could just go back to killbox interdiction sorties.

 

Q1296  Mr Havard: There is a communication problem, is there not?

Air Marshal Torpy: If I may deal with the first piece first. In killbox interdiction, an aircraft or maybe a pair of aircraft are tasked into a particular box. They either identify targets themselves - they can be controlled sometimes by somebody on the ground - or we also sometimes put an aircraft in that box to control other aircraft using an airborne forward air controller, who builds up a picture of activity in that particular area and can then direct aircraft efficiently on to targets on the ground. It means, though, that you have to have the wherewithal to identify fairly small targets like artillery pieces, like tanks, from medium altitude. This is something which we recognise is difficult. It is one of the lessons that we have learned out of the campaign, that our tasking pods need longer range, better fidelity. It is something we are looking at for the future. So positively identifying that a target is a military target, I am not disputing is a challenge, but it is something we have to train for, something we have to make sure that we equip our aircraft correctly for as well.

 

Q1297  Mr Havard: Turning back to munitions, you have described the situation in relation to precision munitions. How did you ensure that non-precision munitions actually achieved the same result in terms of target response?

Air Marshal Torpy: As I have mentioned, we did not use a large number of non-precision weapons. In looking at what weapon you are going to use against a particular target, crews will take into account a number of different factors. Unguided, non-precision weapons are suited to some target arrays but increasingly we are having more sophisticated weapons which can do that job with greater precision. They are governed by exactly the same collateral damage rules that for precision guided weapons are used, and I can provide the Committee with a follow-on note of the details of the actual collateral damage considerations which go to the use of non-precision weapons. It is really the distances that we use for possible collateral damage.

 

Q1298  Mr Havard: As far as the precision material is concerned, improving its precision even further but also reducing the time of its delivery would presumably be very useful in terms of doing more to reduce incidental civilian harm. From your experience, how do you think the Ministry of Defence could seek to ensure that these sort of improvements could be delivered?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think we are doing exactly that. Our future weapons' programmes are all pointing towards increased provision and tailored effects as well. We recognise that the majority of our weapons' stocks are thousand pound bombs, we recognise that, in particular, if you are going to try to operate in an urban area a thousand pound bomb is probably too large. I think the Committee is aware that we used some inert (colloquially called "concrete") thousand pound weapons. That was a method of having a smaller degree of damage. We really need - which we are now getting - a 500 pound precision-guided bomb, and there is probably a requirement for a 250 pound precision-guided bomb as well.

 

Q1299  Chairman: Without touching on my colleague's next question, the document on operations in Iraq to which we have referred, First Reflections, lists on page 48 the number of sorties, the number of weapons released: 919, excluding Tomahawk (of which there was, of course, a substantial number). Are we able to see on whatever basis, not just the number of sorties but actually how many succeeded to land where they were intended to land? Surely there must be yardsticks. Do you try to circle an area of probability? You must have, you do have, an ability to follow up recognisance, as it were, to see whether it was worthwhile. It is one thing getting hold of this but another thing in the MoD releasing it. But certainly we would like to see it, because if, by the taxpayer, there has been a large amount of money being spent on guided munitions, it would be useful to see more than has been presented to us on the number of munitions.

Air Marshal Torpy: We can certainly provide you with a follow-up note on the detail of that, Chairman, through the Ministry of Defence.

Chairman: That will be held in the normal restricted area.

 

Q1300  Rachel Squire: Air Marshal, can I pick up on some of your comments so far on precision-guided munitions. Our information is, as you have already said, that they were a particular success of the Iraq campaign. Can you say whether the RAF involvement in the air campaign was restricted by the limited UK stocks of precision-guided munitions?

Air Marshal Torpy: The simple answer to your question is that it was not limited. We had good stocks in our Enhanced Paveway, which was the new bomb. We had good stocks of our older laser-guided Paveway II and Paveway III weapons. We clearly had a limited stock of Storm Shadow, because it was just coming on to the production line; but it was adequate for the targets that the Americans particularly wanted us to fire against. Overall, I was very satisfied with our weapons stocks for the length of campaign that we envisaged.

 

Q1301  Rachel Squire: Just picking up on your mention of Storm Shadow; although it was produced as an urgent operational requirement, your view was that sufficient numbers of Storm Shadow missiles were available for the use that you required of them.

Air Marshal Torpy: That is correct. If more had been available, we could probably have found suitable targets to use them against, but they were predominantly used in the first few days of the target where they were targeted against particularly hard command-control targets, for which they were highly suitable.

 

Q1302  Rachel Squire: Can you tell us today, or provide us with information in writing, on the exact number of Storm Shadow missiles that were launched and that were considered to be successful?

Air Marshal Torpy: I can follow that up with a note to the Committee. Twenty-seven were fired. The detail of the weapons effects and such like are clearly classified, and we would have to follow it up.

 

Q1303  Rachel Squire: I was going to ask you about the targeting criteria adopted, but you have already referred to that, particularly the priority being given to avoidance of collateral damage - and you also said you would write to us on other things. Can I come on to the Brimstone air-launched anti-armour weapon which was originally supposed to be in service in October 2002. It would then have been available. Can I ask you to comment on the impact of not having the Brimstone for October?

Air Marshal Torpy: There is no doubt that, as the air component commander, I would have liked to have Brimstone as one of the weapons which the crews might have had available. I think it would have had utility in certain circumstances against certain target categories. It was a weapon that, clearly, I would have liked to have used if it had become available. We did look at the feasibility of accelerating the programme, but we eventually took a judgment that with our other weapon stock and the types of targets, it was unlikely we would be able to progress the programme sufficiently quickly to be able to use it in theatre in the way that we would like to use it.

 

Q1304  Rachel Squire: If you had had Brimstone, would you have dropped fewer cluster bombs?

Air Marshal Torpy: In likelihood, we probably would have dropped fewer cluster bombs, yes.

 

Q1305  Rachel Squire: Can you comment on the criteria you used to assess the need to use cluster bombs in the operation?

Air Marshal Torpy: In judging the weapons you use against any particular target, it is very much a judgment left to the crew, who have the detailed knowledge of the effect they are trying to achieve and the target make-up. Cluster weapons are obviously particularly relevant in the context of soft-skin vehicles, lightly armoured vehicles, and on occasions against heavy armour light tanks as well, particularly if they are grouped together. That is where cluster bombs offer a higher likelihood of killing more vehicles than one precision-guided weapon. Those are the sort of circumstances and considerations that the crew would have when judging what weapon to use against a target centre.

 

Q1306  Rachel Squire: We were talking earlier about how the years of joint training and operations have brought the RAF and the USAF very close together in terms of co-operation and co-ordination. Can you therefore comment on the RAF's use of cluster bombs as compared to the Americans' use of cluster bombs? Are the criteria similar?

Air Marshal Torpy: We all go through exactly the same thought process in terms of using the most appropriate weapon against a particular target set, taking into account collateral damage and such like as well. I think we use exactly the same principles.

 

Q1307  Mr Havard: Are the cluster weapons used by the RAF and Americans set up the same for the munitions that are on the ground?

Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot speak in detail about the American weapons, so I cannot answer your question.

 

Q1308  Mr Havard: My understanding is that you can set them in such a way that the things will degrade quicker.

Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot speak for the American weapons, I am afraid. Our weapons do not do that.

Air Commodore Nickols: On the point about cluster weapons, you have to bear in mind the risk to your own crews, and if, with a cluster weapon had the opportunity, with a close-knit group of enemy vehicles, you are content with only one pass of your own aircraft instead of ten passes. That has to be taken into account because all the time you have got to look at the risk to your air crews as well.

 

Q1309  Mr Viggers: You have explained that Jaguar was not used and that reconnaissance carrying pods were fitted to other aircraft instead. Why was Jaguar not used?

Air Marshal Torpy: It was purely a factor of trying to find some additional room at various places to locate this aircraft. I was quite keen to use them because we knew that tactical reconnaissance is a very important capability. It is a niche capability that the RAF has developed over the years. I believe they would have had utility, as we had later in the campaign, and why we put the Jaguar recce pod on to both the Harrier and the Tornado. We were balancing the capabilities we needed and looked at what we would have to displace if we brought Jaguar in. Our judgment was that for that particular part of the campaign, it was better to stick with the structure that we had decided on, in the knowledge that we could put work in hand to bring the Jaguar recce pod on to the Harrier and Tornado later on where we always knew we were likely to need more surveillance as we transitioned into phase 4.

Air Commodore Nickols: You have to remember that Jaguars were operating on Operation Northern Watch, fully supporting that right up to the start of the main campaign, so they would not have been available to switch to the south until a very late stage anyway.

 

Q1310  Mr Viggers: In relation to battle damage assessment, are there cultural differences between the manner of assessing battle damage by the Americans and the British?

Air Marshal Torpy: No, not at all. Battle damage assessment is obviously a vital part of the whole execution process, which really starts with finding a target, identifying it as a target, and tracking it if it is a mobile target. If you decide to engage it, you then go through the process of deciding what you are doing to engage it with; carry out the engagement and create the effect you want. The final part of that equation is the battle damage assessment. You judge the effect you have had - "do I need to re-visit that target; have I created the effect I wanted?" It is a vital part of the whole process. The areas in that process that remain in real challenge are identifying the target, tracking it, it if it is a small target, and then the assessment afterwards. We have a vast array of collection platforms and collection capability. Joining that information together remains a challenge. As we improve our technical means in employing network-centric capabilities, then we will be able to get a better fused product, which would provide to the commander and his staffs the ability to improve both the speed and accuracy of battleship assessment. I do not think it was perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and it is one of those areas we have identified where we need to put a lot of effort.

 

Q1311  Mr Viggers: You anticipated my question. I was going to ask whether lessons were learned in terms of communication policy and communication between the Air Force and the Army. Are the systems capable of informing troops on the ground of the results?

Air Marshal Torpy: Communications internally within the UK component is one of the major lessons of the UK out of this whole operation, and I think Air Marshal Burridge mentioned it in his evidence to the Committee. At the moment, we do not have a system that the Americans have, Supernet, which is used by all the components and allows very ready communication at every level between every different component in the force. We have discrete systems which are joined through suitable gateways, but it is not as efficient or as robust as the US system. Again, it has been identified as a major lesson, and indeed there is already work in hand with the defence information infrastructure to provide the UK Forces with a system which will be comparable and compatible with the American system.

 

Q1312  Rachel Squire: You mentioned earlier about close air support and how the core skill is air-land integration. You said that whilst there seems to be considerable satisfaction with the US Air Force and RAF co-operation, there does not appear to be the same level of peacetime exercise that took place prior to Operation Telic between land forces and US air forces. If that is the case, and there was a lack in that land-air support area, did it contribute to the need for further refinement and practice? Did even contribute to the friendly fire incidents?

Air Marshal Torpy: As I mentioned in my other answer, air/land integration is without doubt one of those areas where we need to do more. We identified it before the campaign started. I think we are probably victims of past campaigns in that Operation Desert Storm was a discrete air operation followed by a short land campaign, and very little integrated air-land operation took place. Afghanistan was the first time we saw closer integration between air and land, but on a relatively small scale in terms of the land component. This was the first operation that I have certainly seen for many years where we have seen such close linkage between air and land components. As a consequence of the last ten years' experience, we have forgotten some of the things that we were quite good at during the Cold War, where we had a very closely integrated air-land battle. There was an organisation called the Air Support Operation Centre, whose job it is to co-ordinate air-land operations. We have probably neglected the exercising of those over the years, for the reasons I have explained. There is a lot of work going on now on both sides of the Atlantic between our air forces and our respective armies, to look at how we can refine our procedures and create training opportunities where we can on a routine basis - I would hope daily - with air crew working with our land colleagues, doing all the things which we saw we would have to do during this operation. Importantly, we also need to exercise the whole command control organisation from the combined air operations through the ASOC at a tactical level, with air controllers, be they on the ground, in the air or whatever. There is a lot of attention going into that area as we speak; and it was going on before the operation started.

 

Q1313  Rachel Squire: That is clearly very good news, and I can take from that that some of your traditional training exercises are actively being examined in the light of the Iraq experience. Would you like to comment on whether you will require additional funding to implement the lessons on close air support that have been gleaned from Operation Telic?

Air Marshal Torpy: There are probably two aspects to this. First, there are the processes - and we can sort that out and that will not have significant cost implications. Exercising may have some cost implications, depending on where we have to go to do these sorts of exercises. I know that we will be able to do some of that training in the UK. The British Army already train in a place called BATUS. We sent aircraft last year and this year off to BATUS to start training in a more integrated manner with the British Army. The United States Air Force and Army have an exercise, and I hope we will be able to integrate that training in the course of our normal exercise programme. There may be additional resources required, but I do not know yet. There is also an equipment element to this as well. I mentioned in answer to another question about the need for more targeting pods, and ideally every aircraft which is going to be operating in a close air support environment or kill-box interdiction environment should have a targeting pod so that he can identify targets. As we get increasing stand-off with our weapons, we will need improved pods which can identify targets at greater stand-off ranges. So there may be a resource bill in due course for that, but it would have to sit within the priorities of the overall programme, clearly.

 

Q1314  Rachel Squire: Can I ask you about the comments of General John Jumper, the USAF Chief Affairs Staff, who I understand has greatly increased US Air Force support to the Army by using strategic B52s and B1s. Does the RAF intend to follow his example?

Air Marshal Torpy: One of the aspects which came out of the campaign was the utility of the large bomber force, be it B1s, B2s, B52s. They have persistence and they have a large payload, but they have to have the environment to be able to operate. Our ability to gain air supremacy quickly enables us to use those aircraft to the fullest extent. Whether that will always be the case I do not know. We would like to be able to create the conditions so you can use those sorts of assets, but there will possibly be circumstances where they cannot be used. As always, it is about having a balanced structure. The United States Air Force clearly has the resources to have capabilities that our Air Force will never be able to have. I do not think probably our Air Force needs a squadron of B1s or a squadron of B2s -----

 

Q1315  Chairman: Can we dig up the V bombers? The B52s are going to be older than I am before they are retired.

Air Marshal Torpy: They certainly will be, Mr Chairman.

 

Q1316  Mike Gapes: I want to ask you further about how you allocated your forces to provide air support to land forces, when air support was requested. Can you go through how that process works?

Air Marshal Torpy: As I mentioned, in constructing a day's flying activity - and we are talking here about anything between 2,000 and 2,500 sorties - the process would have gone through the CAOC planning. We would have identified certain tasks and certain target sets which fall out of that. A request will come up from each component - land component, maritime component, special forces component, the air component - "I need, in an ideal world, these targets to be serviced in a 24-hour period". Inevitably, we will not be able to service all those targets because they will be outwith resources, so we then prioritise. The staff in the CAOC do that in consultation with the components, so we match capability with resources and come out with agreed targets that we are going to attack. It then comes down to allocating the most appropriate platform to a particular target set. That is one of the reasons why in the CAOC there are experts on each of our weapons platforms, and they are involved in that target or that platform allocation process where they say, "for that particular target, a GR4 with Enhanced Paveway is the ideal platform." That, in general terms, is the process that goes on. That is exactly the same with closed air support and kill-box interdiction as well; it is trying to match a particular platform and its capabilities to the particular task. It may be that, for instance, a Harrier, which is fairly short range and short endurance, will be used closer to its base than, say, a Tornado GR4, which has a longer range and can be used deeper into the battle space. It is impossible, for instance, to say, "we are only going to use UK aircraft to support the UK land force" because that would be an inefficient use of air power. Inevitably, we would not have sufficient UK assets to provide cover for instance to a UK land component 24 hours a day. That is why air power has always been used and planned on centralised methodology; and then we decentralise the execution of the operation. It is trying to make the best use of the resources across the battle space and in time.

Air Commodore Nickols: The percentage of sorties that go into any particular type of activity is decided at the joint level - and that was John Franks in this case. It is not decided by the Air Commander. He then gets on and allocates that. The other point that is perhaps worth making is that of those sorties that are allocated in direct support of the land commander, he decides what they do; the Air Commander does not; he merely sends them to where the land commander needs them to do his business.

 

Q1317  Chairman: There were liaison cells with the land forces and an embedding of this network in the Air Operation Co-ordination Centre; but how did they work in practice? Do you think there are lessons you will have learned from it? Will they be a regular feature of future operations?

Air Marshal Torpy: You are absolutely right. I have already mentioned that I believe the Air Operation Co-ordination Centres are one of the areas to look at where we could train more appropriately and more regularly as well. There were two distinct aspects to this in the execution of Iraqi Freedom, in the use of US marine-air, and I would say other air. The US Marine Corps has a highly integrated force structure, because their air is used really to supplement their long-range artillery that the US Army or our Army has. As a consequence of that, they are highly integrated and use long-range artillery. As a consequence, their equivalent of the Air Co-ordination Operation Centre is exercised on a very regular basis. I would not say that that was the same for the five-corps ASOC which was controlling a lot of the other air. We need to draw the lessons from the level of training and integration that the US Marine Corps achieved and translate those lessons across to the exercising procedures used by the other ASOCs.

 

Q1318  Mr Cran: It is our understanding that the US Marine Corps has its own close air support aircraft and that these were not pooled during the campaign. Can you confirm whether that was or was not the case? The more interesting proposition is that Air Marshal Burridge told us that the Marine Corps model was worth looking at for the British Air Force. I am bound to say that that confused me, but I would like to ask what is your view of that, and if that does not clear up my confusion, I will tell you what it is.

Air Marshal Torpy: It leads on from my previous answer. You are correct in saying that the US Marine Corps - the first priority was to support the first marine expedition force. Any excess sorties were then offered to the CFAC to be used throughout the battle space. We can argue as to whether that is the way it should have been done, and we can have a debate with our US colleagues on that. There are some very good lessons to be learnt from the way that the US Marine Corps is integrated together, and the way in which they operate their aircraft. I do not think though, from the UK perspective, that we should follow that model of having direct support allocated to a particular army unit. I say that because of comments I made earlier about the way that air is used across the complete battle space. We need to make sure that those resources are used most appropriately at a particular phase in an operation. If you attach a particular piece of air to a particular ground formation, that will inevitably lead to inefficient use of air. We need to pick out the good bits, and there are some very good bits in the way the US Marine Corps integrate their air together. We need to make sure that those good lessons are translated into the good doctrinal practices that I believe we do have for use and control of our air.

 

Q1319  Mr Cran: What are the good bits?

Air Marshal Torpy: I think The Air Support Co-ordination Centre is well exercised. Predominantly it is exercised on a very regular basis, and as a result of that, their performance is good. That is one of the major lessons that I would take out of the whole operation. In all other respects, their procedures are exactly the same as those used throughout the rest of the air operation - kill-box interdiction, close air support. They are exactly the same; it was just the efficiency of the way the air was integrated together in the US Marine Corps.

 

Q1320  Mr Cran: I am very pleased to say that you have cleared up the problem in my mind. It seems to me that if we had gone down the route that Air Marshal Burridge was suggesting - and to be fair to him, if he had been asked the right questions he would have perhaps cleared all this up - the British Air Force would have had to give up all roles other than support of ground forces, which simply does not seem to make a lot of sense. We have got that right.

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes.

 

Q1321  Mr Cran: If we did go down that route, it would mean, would it not, the most enormous change to training and doctrine? Is there a real debate going on within the MOD or your service that we should adopt this approach; or do you think -----

Air Marshal Torpy: I think we have had the debate, and we realise that there are some good things to be learnt from the US Marine Corps experience. One thing I would point out about their structure is that they are enabled, just as the US Navy are, by the United States Air Force. They have very limited air-to-air refuelling capability and very limited intelligence air surveillance reconnaissance; and they have very limited command controls. Therefore, things like E3s - some of the advanced, sophisticated intelligence-gathering aircraft - are provided to both the US Navy and the US Marine Corps by the United States Air Force. We would be in exactly that same position, of having an air force which was then incoherent. I hope that answers your question.

Chairman: It seems that those arguments are well honed in officers' messes over the years, Air Marshal.

 

Q1322  Mr Havard: Can I return to the air-land interface. One of your squadron leaders was telling us that the difference this time was that the land forces were already in, and the air support had to work around them, which was different from the previous Gulf conflict. He said that at times they were not able to drop munitions in support of ground forces. Part of the reason for that was that they were moving so quickly and could not identify it properly, so they were not confident about it. He says there are people called Anglicos (Air Liaison Officers/Forward Air Controllers) who were not practised in working in land headquarters and then trying to work with aircraft. Is this a specific area of difficulty in terms of integrating land and air? If so, what are you doing about it?

Air Marshal Torpy: This comes back to the same question, and it is the exercising of all of the aspects -----

 

Q1323  Mr Havard: Is it just training?

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes.

 

Q1324  Mr Havard: What about communications? Can they do it?

Air Marshal Torpy: The communications in general are adequate. I think we can improve them occasionally. If we look forward a few years to the network-centric environment that we will all be striving for, then we have no doubt we will have to improve our communications to make sure we are completely interoperable and have robust communications throughout the battle space. I would not say at this stage that we are anywhere close to the capability that we will need for the future. I think the basic procedures and principles are correct; but we need to put more effort into our day-to-day training.

 

Q1325  Rachel Squire: Air Marshal, I want to come on to the Joint Helicopter Force and ask you what the lessons are from the deployment of the Joint Helicopter Force.

Air Marshal Torpy: I should start by saying that I am probably not the best person to answer this. The Committee may be aware that the Joint Helicopter Command is under the operational command of Headquarters Land. During the campaign, as it would be under any operation of this type, then operation tactical command is with the land components. Headquarters Land was responsible for the deployment and the employment of Joint Helicopter Command assets during the campaign.

 

Q1326  Rachel Squire: Therefore, are you able to provide information about sortie rates and air crew hours flown by Joint Helicopter Force as opposed to Harrier and Tornado GR4 detachments?

Air Marshal Torpy: I would not be in a position to provide that information to you at this time. I can either provide a note.

 

Q1327  Chairman: You can probably write directly. So much for joined-up government! I thought you would have a real handle on it if you -----

Air Marshal Torpy: We have a complete handle on integrating them into the air targeting order, so co-ordinating it when it flies; but I do not have responsibility for how it is used, deployed or recovered.

 

Q1328  Chairman: Is there any suggestion that the RAF has taken that role over?

Air Marshal Torpy: We actually gave it to the Army a few years ago, for very good joint reasons.

Chairman: I am just being provocative!

 

Q1329  Mr Roy: Sadly, we know that a number of UK and US service personnel were killed by friendly fire, and an inquiry is still ongoing into that tragedy. Can you tell us when that board of inquiry is due to report its findings?

Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot give you a definitive date yet. There are still technical investigations going on and we do not have a date. I anticipate that it would be sometime in the New Year.

 

Q1330  Mr Roy: How much training took place between coalition aircraft and US air defence systems, such as Patriot, prior to Operation Telic?

Air Marshal Torpy: We have also been operating in the southern no-fly zones. As Patriot is deployed into the theatre, then as a routine basis the air space controllers and special operating procedures which all air has to operate under took account of all of the air defence assets being airborne or ground-based air defence systems. So as a matter of routine, our air crew have been operating under those procedures all of the time that Operation Southern Watch has been going on. When it looked as though the operation was going to be authorised, additional assets were deployed into theatre and a number of Patriots increased. It was not a case of whether we had to conduct specific training; it was an ongoing process that had been going on for months.

 

Q1331  Mr Roy: Do those Patriot systems have identified friend or foe systems?

Air Marshal Torpy: They do, but they do not rely just on IFF; there are procedural mechanisms as well.

 

Q1332  Mr Roy: Are you confident that lessons will be learned from the causes of the friendly fire incidents that were witnessed and that proper remedial measures have been identified and acted upon?

Air Marshal Torpy: I am confident that we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that the lessons are implemented. I think we also have to be realistic that friendly fire incidents are obviously human tragedies and they also have a negative impact on the campaign. It is in all of our interests to make sure that we reduce fratricide to the absolute minimum, whether fratricide between aircraft or between ground units, or between air and ground units. I think technology will to a degree assist us in this. Again, our aspiration of a network-centric environment will give us better shared awareness, and we will know where every asset is on the battle space, which we do not at the moment. Just as technology will give us that opportunity, it will also give us the opportunity to synchronise our activity and make it more complex. The opportunities in an increasingly complex battle space for fratricide are likely to increase.

 

Q1333  Mr Roy: I would like to stick to the human level. On the findings and measures, will they be publicly classified, both for the general public, for politicians, and, most importantly, for the service personnel?

Air Marshal Torpy: They will clearly be implemented throughout the service so that our operating procedures are known to everybody who needs to know about them. I cannot speak as to whether that would be released to the general public, but some of it will not because it will be classified - the method by which we identify targets.

 

Q1334  Mr Roy: It seems to me that making a public clarification is very, very important for many people's morale. We know for example that on March 23 Group Captain Simon Dobb publicly stated: "Without pre-judging a board of inquiry, we have resolved certain issues to obtain cast-iron guarantees that a mistake like this cannot happen again." This in relation to the incident we are talking about. "The Americans have made a prudent and rapid improvement in the evaluation of Patriot rules of engagement. I can categorically assure my crews that there is no danger of inadvertent engagement." However, from what you say neither the British nor the US Military have publicly clarified what these guarantees were or how the rules of engagement were changed, so how are we supposed to know what they are, bearing in mind that that was March 23, and two days later an F16 fired a missile on a Patriot radar after it scanned his plane and then shortly thereafter a Patriot shot down an American F18 near Kabala; and, again there was no public clarification. If you hear someone saying about the measures that have been taken, but two or three days later the same thing is happening, do you not think that that is wrong, and that someone needs to clarify to people on the ground the measures that were taken?

Air Marshal Torpy: Combat identification is a very complex issue. We did make some adjustments to the rules of engagement and the way that Patriot was being employed as a result of the Tornado GR4 incident. I cannot speak in detail on the circumstances and the other aircraft. It is difficult to say that the adjustments made for the Tornado incident were directly applicable to the other incidents. As I mentioned earlier, it is in all of our interests to make sure that we minimise fratricide on engagements. We take it extremely seriously. Group Captain Dobb's statement that he can categorically say that it will not happen again - he cannot really say that because whenever there is a human in the loop, whilst technology will assist the reduction in these incidents, inevitably, in the confusion of a very complex battle space, errors will be made. That is a realistic assessment of what will happen. It would be unrealistic to say it would eliminate all -----

 

Q1335  Mr Roy: I wonder how you can come out with such statements because you are giving safety guarantees that really you should not be giving; and therefore there is a morale problem when another problem comes further down the line. Then, invariably, the service personnel say "they are not really looking at this problem in the depth they should", because the same mistakes were still happening three, four and five days later. That is why public clarification seems to me to be -----

Air Commodore Nickols: I think Dobb was probably saying related to the particular sets of circumstances, the loss of a Tornado, rather than a wider set of circumstances.

 

Q1336  Mr Roy: What use does the coalition force make of the UK Rapier Missile System, and did its use highlight any improvements or enhancements that you think were needed?

Air Marshal Torpy: We did use one Rapier squadron to protect one of our deployed operating forces because it was felt that that particular location needed a short-range air defence system. It was deployed because it provides capability that the United States Air Force does not have, and there were no shortcomings for this operation that were needed to rectify. There is a long-term programme, which had been underway on the equipment programme side, to make improvements to Rapier.

 

Q1337  Mr Roy: Does Rapier have IFF?

Air Marshal Torpy: It does.

 

Q1338  Mr Roy: Was there a risk of friendly fire from using Rapier in Operation Telic?

Air Marshal Torpy: No more than any other system. We had the procedures, we had the equipment; but we have humans in the loop as well.

 

Q1339  Chairman: I can remember asking a parliamentary question on IFF in 1977, a quarter of a century ago. Has there not been enough investment? Has there not been enough co-operation between allies? The more allies we have involved, the greater the problems; the more we go down the route of network-centric warfare, the battle space is going to be infinitely more complicated. Mr Webb would say everything is under control, but you have responsibilities, as we do. What needs to be done? There must be other things that could be done or things that could be done better, because it is carnage out there sometimes.

Air Marshal Torpy: A significant amount of effort is going into combat identification and I would hate for the Committee to go away with the impression that we are in any way complacent in this area. It is an enormous technical problem. Just as we are not close to achieving a network-centric environment, we are not close yet to identifying where every vehicle is on the battle space. Until we can do that, and aircraft know where every vehicle on the battle space is, we will never be in the situation of having that shared situation of awareness which will give us the highest probability of not engaging a friendly unit. There will be an awful lot of confusion out there as well - operating at night under poor light conditions, poor climatic conditions. It would be wrong to suggest that we would eliminate fratricide. Personally, as a military commander, I regret to say that we will continue to have fratricide just as we continue to have road accidents with our deployed forces as well. It is one of the facts of life. It is our job to make sure that those tragic incidents are reduced to the absolute minimum.

 

Q1340  Chairman: Does this analysis of improvements cover air-to-ground, ground-to-air?

Air Marshal Torpy: Very much so. We recognise it is one of the most challenging environments.

 

Q1341  Mr Havard: On the rules of engagement issue and how land forces call in, one of your people told us that they are being sorted out. There are procedures you have described to us, if they are calling in close air support; but their complaint was that they were intending to try and use it just as extended artillery. How do you deal with this communication link between the people on the ground and the people in the air? It seems to me to be absolutely crucial from both sides of the equation. There is a hole here, is there not, and in terms of what they are using it for as well?

Air Marshal Torpy: I go back to the answer I gave on kill-box interdiction and close air support. Close air support is where there are friendly troops engaged who need air support. Air support is only provided under direct control of a ground-based controller, and also it is the responsibility of the pilot to positively identify that the target he is about to attack is the target intended. If he feels that that is not the case, then he should not drop his weapon - unless he feels the situation on the ground is so dire that the balance of risk is that he should release the weapon. At the end of the day, it comes back to the man in the loop. It is not a communication issue; I think it is an inevitability and a realistic appreciation of what happens.

 

Q1342  Mr Havard: It seems to me that the number of air-to-air incidents are infinitely less than the number of ground to air incidents.

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes, because it is much less complex. Air-to-air, you are dealing with a relatively small number of aircraft on the battle space. It is much more complex and more difficult to identify a small target. If every vehicle had IFF, and we could see that in our aircraft, then that would go a long way to reducing it.

 

Q1343  Mr Havard: But it would not eliminate it. It comes back to the point I made earlier; that at certain periods of time, no matter how sophisticated the targeting policy is, at points of extremis it gets transferred to one individual in one aeroplane.

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes.

 

Q1344  Mr Havard: No matter what you do in terms of procedural arrangements or what you do in terms of asset tracking, your training and experience of that individual, in terms of where they are at that point in the conflict is absolutely crucial. If they have no experience of being in these relationships previously, then you are in dead trouble.

Air Marshal Torpy: Exactly, and that is a point we have all hoisted aboard and why we are improving our level of air-land communication. It is exactly the same as the person puling the trigger in a tank, against another tank; it is his responsibility to identify the tank he is about to fire against, whether it is an enemy tank or a friendly tank.

 

Q1345  Mr Cran: On something far less controversial, were the air-to-air refuelling assets pooled?

Air Marshal Torpy: They were.

 

Q1346  Mr Cran: I understand 355 sorties were flown by the RAF aircraft, which, without any doubt at all, was quite an effort. The Committee presumes they were successfully done, but we would like to hear you say so. What lessons did you learn and, even more importantly, if there were lessons learned, how will those be reflected in the replacement for ...

Air Marshal Torpy: One of the capabilities that the American Air Force asked us to provide as much as we thought we could do to support our own aircraft - as I mentioned, 40 per cent was offloaded to the US Marine Corps and US Navy. I also mentioned that air-to-air refuelling effectively governed the whole output of the air tasking order because of the range the aircraft had to operate from deployed bases to the theatre of operation, particularly as the land component started to coalesce around Baghdad. The lessons out of it are the essential nature of air-to-air refuelling. Whilst carrier-based air has a degree of independence from host nation support by virtue of being a carrier, it has to be supported because of the distance of the carrier from the theatre of operations by land-based large tankers. That is one of the factors which governed the need for so many tankers around the region. That clearly then presents a potential problem with finding suitable bases for tankers. They could be deployed, and we even looked at deployed tankers into the bases in Europe, operating towards the Iraq theatre; but that, clearly, comes down to the amount of off-load of fuel that is provided; so the closer you get the tanker to theatre the better as well. Tankers are an essential feature of use of modern air power. Our own tankers are very valuable because they have got the capability to refuel US Marine Corps and US Navy aircraft.

 

Q1347  Mr Cran: But apparently not the US Air Force.

Air Marshal Torpy: Correct, because the American Air force have a different system; they have a boom system, whereas we have a probe and probe, which is what the US Marine Corps have. As to lessons for our tankers - not specific to any of our platforms. It really just emphasised the utility and essential nature tanker air-to-air refuelling. We look forward to receiving our future air-to-air refuelling tanker because our VC10s and Tristars - VC10s in particular - are getting expensive to continue to operate.

 

Q1348  Mr Cran: So there should be no delay.

Air Marshal Torpy: The bids are in the process of being scrutinised.

 

Q1349  Mr Cran: It is entirely appropriate that a Scotsman of Aberdeen should ask the last question! What were the financial arrangements for refuelling US aircraft, i.e., how did we get our money back?

Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot answer that question.

 

Q1350  Mr Cran: If I might say so, that is outrageous! Can we have a note?

Air Marshal Torpy: Yes, I will provide a note.

Chairman: Have we paid for the fuel that we received - thanks to James raising this issue? It probably cost the Ministry of Defence a lot of money for paying the maintenance back.

 

Q1351  Mr Viggers: How does the 2,500 sorties flown during the campaign compare with the normal use that aircraft would have had during the period, without hostilities?

Air Marshal Torpy: It clearly peaked at the beginning of the campaign, so we always knew that we would operate our aircraft at intensive rates of flying and then we would rank back activity to give us a sustainable position for the long term. It is difficult, therefore, to judge that in terms of particular snapshots, but if I took it over the length of the campaign, they were operating at higher levels than our peacetime rates, but within the levels that we have within our defence planning assumptions for wartime operations.

 

Q1352  Mr Viggers: I was going to ask if the increased use of the aircraft and the environment in which they are operating has caused any revision in the expected life of the aircraft?

Air Marshal Torpy: It has not at all.

 

Q1353  Mr Viggers: And does that apply to helicopters as well?

Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot speak for the helicopter force, I am afraid.

 

Q1354  Chairman: The last question is on media coverage. We took evidence from journalists who were embedded within the system and almost all appeared to have been looking at the land campaign and a lot of the people who appeared to have been talking about the air campaign were those who were in Baghdad which gave a peculiar perspective of how effective the air campaign was. What was your assessment of media coverage of the air campaign?

Air Marshal Torpy: We had embedded media journalists on a number of our deployed operation bases, particularly those ones in Kuwait. I think because the main focus of the media activity was in Kuwait initially and then moving forward with the land components, it was inevitable that there would be a limited opportunity for air to be in the media forefront. Also I think it is much easier obviously for embedded journalists to get a flavour of the land component and the way that land activity is conducted rather than the air component because all they see is aircraft, group planning, aircraft being launched and then recovered and they do not have the opportunity to go and fly in a Tornado, for instance, on an operation, so I think there is a slightly different aspect to the way that coverage of the air component is undertaken. I think we got pretty good coverage actually and I think, from talking to my own people, they were very satisfied with the coverage that they got. I know that Air Marshal Burridge highlighted the fact that embedded media only have a very small view of the bigger picture and that is one of the things that we will also have to look at for the future to make sure that their reporting is put into a wider context. I hope that answers the Committee's question.

Chairman: Yes, well, if you are so happy with the media coverage, maybe you could second one of your guys to come along into the select committee system for its media coverage.

 

Q1355  Mr Viggers: If I can ask one final question, was there any difference at all in the treatment of male and female pilots? We have not raised this issue for some time and I would be interested to know if there is any distinction at all.

Air Marshal Torpy: No, there is absolutely no difference between the treatment of RAF male and female pilots. It is exactly the same.

 

Q1356  Chairman: How many female pilots were operating?

Air Marshal Torpy: I do not know that, but I can find out.

 

Q1357  Chairman: Yes, if you could find that out and within different types of aircraft.

Air Marshal Torpy: Certainly.

Chairman: Well, thank you both very much. It has been a very easy morning, Air Commodore, Air Marshal, almost like a day out of the office, so come again please! It was very helpful and we appreciate your coming along.