Examination of Witness (Questions 260-279)
AIR MARSHAL
BRIAN BURRIDGE
CBE
11 JUNE 2003
Q260 Rachel Squire:
Was there something which particularly surprised the coalition?
What was that?
Air Marshal Burridge:
We knew Saddam's strategy. He believed that he could survive this.
He believed that with a combination of circumstances he could
achieve the sort of international condemnation of the coalition
and the fracture of domestic public support. I believe he felt
that those were achievable; we shall never know but I believe.
We knew about the Baghdad defence plan over the years, ranging
back more than 10 years. We had seen how they would seek to defend
Baghdad, but we also knew that they would not let us just drive
straight up there, so they would want to delay us and it is that
delay which is significant, because that is the period in which
he assumed that there would be international condemnation and
public support would evaporate. I think our view was always that
he had two potential strategies. The first was to use chemical
weapons, probably against the civilian population, probably in
Basra, huge numbers of civilians suffering from chemical weapons
would have been a major, major problem and would of course have
fixed us. We would not have been able to move; we could not have
ignored that. But that would go against his strategy because he
would lose the moral high ground and it would be counter productive.
The second thing was to delay us by using irregular forces and
that is what he did. Were we surprised by that? We were not surprised
that he did it. I was surprised by how much he did it, because
the judgment, which was impossible to make, was the extent to
which he had front-loaded those southern cities with the Baath
militia, with the Al Kud with the Saddam Fedayeen and the extent
to which actually they had moved some small groups of Republican
Guard down there. He chose to face us with irregular forces using
asymmetric methods, fighting in civilian clothes, using human
shields extensively, profligate with the lives of their own people,
using ambulances as armoured vehicles. He knew that culturally
that is quite difficult for us to deal with because it is high
risk to the population whose hearts and minds we are trying to
secure. These people had been on Iraqi television in the months
leading up to this, so it was quite clear that they had some utility
in this sort of way. My surprise was the extent to which he had
front-loaded those southern cities and I think that when the analysis
is done we might see that Baghdad was ill defended because a lot
of this stuff had come forward.
Q261 Rachel Squire:
In the meantime he tried to maintain the public facade through
the infamous Minister for Information that everything was going
famously.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Indeed.
Q262 Chairman: Following
on from this question about plans not surviving contact with the
enemy, from where we were looking half way through things looked
as though the wheel was coming off. The big argument which American
journalists largely got wrong was that the wrong force had been
sent: it was too light, there were not enough of them. Was there
any anxiety at that time, where the external pressure from the
media and the chat shows and maybe people who were more authoritative
began to make you wonder whether the force was the right size,
was the right shape and the plans were capable of surviving without
more modification?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Sorry, what was the actual question?
Q263 Chairman: Did
the panic generated in my house reflect in yours?
Air Marshal Burridge:
No.
Q264 Chairman: Did
you think that everything was all right?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes.
Q265 Chairman: Was
the force that was sent the right one? It was not as heavy as
the experts told us. There is an argument that Franks was over-ruled
and in fact it was the Secretary of State who said no, we are
going in light. I know it is rather sensitive and you would not
be disloyal to your colleagues, but could you give us a flavour
of this sort of argument and how it impinged on you?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Yes. We were convinced that the regular army would not fight and
that was pretty obvious from their dispositions. In many ways
the divisions to the north-east of Basra were configured as though
they were fighting a war with Iran. In fact most had deserted
and those who had not deserted were not going to fight. But we
were not talking about a conventional armour to armour piece of
manoeuvre warfare. What we had were very long lines of communication
with these irregular forces able to apply irritation, but it was
only irritation. Maybe if we are going to talk about the media,
I can explain how counter productive it is to describe every pinprick
as a major haemorrhage.
Q266 Mr Howarth: Oh
yes; we certainly are.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Interestingly, in those first three days of the campaign, as I
was mentioning with regard to assessing the impact of irregular
forces, that is when we, as theatre commanders, re-calibrate.
Von Moltke said "the plan won't stand contact": in fact
it does. What you do is just re-calibrate and that is what we
were doing. We saw that because we were there, three or four days,
we were over that and we were off and running again. Of course
there is a lag as this gets to capitals and is chewed around on
chat shows. It was quite interesting just to see that delay. The
force mix in terms of combat power was right.
Q267 Chairman: You
are saying really that your intelligence was pretty good, you
thought they were maldeployed. But if intelligence were that hot,
we would not have made some of the mistakes which were made subsequently.
What would have happened if you had committed a light force, a
fairly small force and you had realised you had the assessment
wrong and there was more bottle in the Iraqis? It could have happened
and you would have been left with a lot of egg on your face.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Forgive me, what mistakes were you referring to.
Q268 Chairman: What
I am saying is that if you had misjudged the Iraqis and it turned
out that they did have more fight in them—yes, you were
right, but it was potentially dangerous—if you took a force
of such a kind anticipating the Iraqis would not fight much and
if they had, then you would have had the wrong force and you would
have had limited ability to correct that.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Forgive me, but you are ignoring the impact of air power. The
effect of modern air power in post-modern warfare is overwhelming,
absolutely overwhelming. Some 700 sorties a day could be used
in counter land operations. This is one of the aspects we will
study. Von Clausewitz always told us that if you are going to
invade somebody's country go at three to one.
Q269 Chairman: You
did it the wrong way round.
Air Marshal Burridge:
We did it the other way round but von Clausewitz did not have
the understanding of air power. Air power was decisive in the
manoeuvre battle.
Q270 Patrick Mercer:
Could I just refer back to the question of the mix of forces?
I was talking about technology gaps and you said as long as there
is a critical mass—I am paraphrasing—in your organisation
you do not need to worry too much about it. I have to accept that.
You referred to the division you deployed, but it was not a conventional
division and one third of it was found by the Royal Navy, one
was a light infantry organisation and one was an armoured formation.
It struck me at the time that there was very little redundancy
above brigade level and indeed former colleagues of mine have
said that 16 Brigade was actually fixed by the enemy, they had
no armour and therefore their utility in terms of the fight for
Basra was pretty small. Assuming that other organisations were
available, was the mix of that division right? If you could wipe
the slate clean, would you have configured it in a different way?
Air Marshal Burridge:
There is a bit of a chicken and egg about your question in that
for the task anticipated that was a good force without a doubt.
I do not accept that 16 Brigade were fixed because they are air
mobile and in fact we had a plan which may have required them
to move north and we could do that. So there was sufficient flexibility
across those capabilities to allow us to do what we needed to
do. I am not quite sure what you meant about redundancy above
brigade level. Are you suggesting combat support was not sufficient?
Q271 Patrick Mercer:
One of the difficulties which was discussed before, and it was
only theoretical, was what would happen to this British division?
This was when the idea was that we might be coming from the north.
Would it be strapped onto the side of an American division or
American corps? The answer was no, because it was not a coherent
armoured division, nor was it, if there were such a thing, a marine
division or an airborne division or whatever. So each brigade
was discrete, the ability to reform after casualties were taken,
which mercifully did not happen, was extremely limited. Clearly
very difficult if you lost a Warrior battalion to replace it from
a Royal Marine brigade. It struck me that actually it would have
been a much more useful organisation to have a couple of armoured
brigades, preferably three. Comment?
Air Marshal Burridge:
As the circumstances actually arose that is not right. Armour
is brilliant in manoeuvre and actually it is very good in urban
warfare too, without a doubt, but there will come a time when
you have to dismount in order to proceed. So what is the point
of moving lots of armour around only to dismount?
Q272 Patrick Mercer:
But the forces you used to dismount were largely armoured forces.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Ultimately; but as you yourself said, there were two other brigades
which were by definition dismounted.
Q273 Mr Jones: You
said earlier on that you had a lot of intelligence about the composition
of the Iraqi armed forces and you mentioned some deserting and
things like that. At what stage did you plan for the possibility
that they would use chemical and biological weapons?
Air Marshal Burridge:
We planned that in from the outset. Do you mean at what stage
in our planning or at what stage did I think?
Q274 Mr Jones: Your
intelligence. What did your intelligence lead you to believe?
Where did you think they would possibly use chemical and biological
weapons?
Air Marshal Burridge:
There was a considerable amount of analysis, most of it pointed
to a line in the sand somewhere south of Baghdad and probably
the Karbala Gap, about 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, where
the Republican Guard divisions were lined up. Most intelligence
assessment felt that if chemical weapons were going to be used
that would be it.
Q275 Mr Howarth: You
said that not too many surprises came your way, but in an article
in The Times before the conflict started you clearly flagged
that one of the concerns that the high command had was of our
troops being sucked into urban hand-to-hand fighting in Baghdad
itself. Albeit that you say that you found early on that Saddam
Hussein had front loaded his forces in Basra and the southern
cities—
Air Marshal Burridge:
I think; I do not know.
Q276 Mr Howarth: From
our perspective here there was the hiccough when it looked as
though the supply line was so long that it was hugely vulnerable
to asymmetric attack. The next thing did seem that we were going
to be sucked into Baghdad. Why did that not happen?
Air Marshal Burridge:
I suspect that we disrupted his command and control very early
on and I think they simply lost the ability to mount any sort
of coherent defence. They were also surprised by the speed of
advance, particularly from the Karbala Gap up to Baghdad airport
and one task force from the 3rd Infantry Division in going to
Baghdad airport even went through Baghdad itself. I just think
they were incapable of responding.
Q277 Mr Howarth: At
what point did you deduce that you were not going to face that
very intensive hand to hand combat?
Air Marshal Burridge:
Probably the second night that US forces were at the airport,
then the 3rd Infantry Division mounted a thrust and went into
the centre of Baghdad to the square where the unknown soldier
monument is. From that point, looking at the response to that,
it was clear that what we were facing was just another version
of Basra, in other words irregular forces, Baathists, this sort
of thing, no special Republican Guard whom you could expect to
fight and fight properly. Certainly just a re-run of Basra, albeit
in a more difficult set of circumstances.
Q278 Mr Howarth: Did
you have a contingency plan, had your siege of Stalingrad, which
you had forecast in The Times, come about? Did you feel
confident that you had enough people, indeed the Americans had
enough people, enough forces on the ground to be able to deal
with that eventuality had it happened?
Air Marshal Burridge:
It is hard to say. Even looking at the plan as we expected it
in reasonably favourable circumstances, but nevertheless the sort
of thing you are talking about, it would have taken a long time.
It would not have been quick.
Q279 Rachel Squire:
You have already made some comment about equipment and the right
scale and mix of forces. Is there any particular mixture of forces
and equipment which for you stands out as needing improvement
or revision or re-examination after the experience of Operation
Telic? You also mentioned SIPRNET as an area which needs to
be improved.
Air Marshal Burridge:
Our fighting equipment, bearing in mind we had a fairly extensive
urgent operational requirement programme which brings it up either
to a higher level or changes it or whatever, taken together our
fighting equipment was very good. A couple of areas where I should
like to see change: one is in communications, information systems;
the other is an aspect of logistics where we are not yet fully
invested in a logistic tracking system which tells us, in the
same way as a global logistic company would know where every bit
of their kit is in transit, we have not yet got that system embedded.
That is an area on which I place considerable emphasis.
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