Memorandum submitted by Ministry of Defence
Examination of Witness (Questions 217-219)
AIR MARSHAL
BRIAN BURRIDGE
CBE
11 JUNE 2003
Q217 Chairman: Air
Marshal, thank you for coming. We have a lot of questions. In
answer to the first one you can give expression to your MoD management-speak
and if you cannot provide the explanation maybe you could get
some organisational charts sent to us. The first question is:
can you explain your role in Operation Telic and the composition
of your staff in Qatar?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I was the national contingent commander, so I had operational
control of some 45,000 to 47,000 British personnel involved in
the operation. That term operational control means that I was
responsible for allocating them to agreed tasks, tasks agreed
by the Ministry of Defence, for their logistic support and for
their alignment with the US plan. To do that in Qatar essentially
I could rely on two elements: my own headquarters; then some UK
embedded staff, who were members of General Franks' staff; so
instead of an American officer doing a particular job, there would
be a British officer. That gave us the linkage and connectivity
between our two headquarters. Then there was my own headquarters'
total of about 350, including the life support of signallers,
etc, but in terms of staff officers about 180.
Q218 Chairman: What
was your organisational relationship with Lieutenant General Reith?
Air Marshal Burridge:
He was designated the joint commander and he ran his headquarters
at Northwood in the traditional way in that not only was he charged
with being the joint commander for Operation Telic but
also for the UK's operations elsewhere in the world which were
going on in parallel. As to our relationship, it is best characterised
that he was looking at the London end and some of the international
aspects away from the theatre, whereas I was looking horizontally
at the region of the theatre and downwards.
Q219 Chairman: It
sounds really simple, but it could not have been because you are
inter-relating with the UK, with the Americans and the organisational
chart must have been in reality quite complicated. What we should
like, if you do not mind, is for you to take the trouble to give
us a clearer picture of who was doing what, the different functions
that were being undertaken, the inter-relationships? That would
be really helpful.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Would you like me just to take that a little further now?
Chairman: Please do. What we will do, if we may,
is ask the next question, because there are some issues to do
with the fuller picture we are looking for and that would be quite
helpful to us.
| 
