Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620-639)
MAJOR GENERAL
ROBIN BRIMS
CBE AND BRIGADIER
SHAUN COWLAM
MBE
25 JUNE 2003
Q620 Chairman: The
different stages; perhaps if you go through, the southern campaign,
obviously, what you were involved with, what you felt were the
different key points at the stages of the campaign, and perhaps
what you thought were the main lessons to be drawn from each of
those points?
Major General Brims:
During the campaign, we had five big battle winners. The first
was our troops, the second was Challenger 2, the third was Warrior,
and the confidence that the troops had in Challenger and Warrior,
which were really good, and the confidence they got in the protection
that they afforded them against everything being thrown at us
became itself like a virtuous circle. The fourth one was our artillery,
particularly the AS90, having to fire at maximum range, the nature
of the round itself and the phenomenal accuracy of it, way beyond
anything that one might have expected, the troops found they could
do. And the fifth significant battle winner was those that cue
our artillery and air systems, in particular the Phoenix, the
unmanned aerial vehicle; we flew it almost non-stop, we flew it
beyond its normal ranges, and it was magnificent. And I would
say those were the four battle winners, but the first was the
troops.
Q621 Chairman: I must
say, it is the first nice thing I have heard of Phoenix, in the
25, 30 years since the concept was first thought of, so I must
remember what you said, because it is fairly unique. I am delighted
it did work eventually. In terms of the conduct of the campaign,
how would you identify, from your perspective, the different actual
stages of that campaign? I am just wondering whether this compares
with what we, as outsiders, saw as the key stages?
Major General Brims:
I think that the first key stage, the fact that there was not
a long air campaign in front of ground movement, which I explained,
why that was the case, I think that was rather crucial, because
I think it took everyone by surprise, and I think that worked
very well for us. I think that and a number of other things really
got inside their decision-making cycle. It had some downsides,
because one then had to catch up with some of the things that
normally, with your air campaign preceding your ground campaign,
you would deny to your opponents, and I am thinking particularly
of communications and the length of time that that was open, and
that became quite a frustration to us at a tactical level, although
on another sphere doing it that way round had big pay-offs. That
was the first point. Then there is the initial attack into 51
Division, which was the enemy division immediately to our front,
which you might describe as being done almost as a set-piece attack,
but under huge fire power that division evaporated. Then I would
describe the next point as finding ourselves holding the bridges
on the outskirts of Basra, coming under counter-attack by the
Iraqi conventional forces, and then also coming in our rear areas
under attack from his irregulars, principally but not only from
the town of al Zubayr. The moment at which we worked out how we
were going to deal with that, which I thought was a critical moment,
the conduct of what I understand was called the "three-block
war", fighting his conventional armed forces, concurrently
fighting his irregulars, whilst, the third part, delivering humanitarian
aid, and so forth, in those areas where we had freed Iraqis from
the regime. And then, finally, getting into Basra, and effectively
removing the regime from the province of Basra, and, in fact,
they fled from the province of Maysan, which is immediately north,
and the significance of that was there were four enemy divisions
from between Basra and Amara, which effectively we had fixed in
place, and they had not been able to interfere with the coalition
operations.
Q622 Chairman: There
was a period in the campaign, according to the media, where things
were really stalling, there were enormous difficulties, people
saying they had the wrong configuration of forces on the American
side, and then, on reflection, it was a pretty swift war, by the
timescale of wars. Did you anticipate such a swift collapse of
a willingness to fight, did you expect it to last longer?
Major General Brims:
One hoped for it, but I did not assume it, and one was prepared
to go for longer. I do not think it could have been much shorter
than it was, because there is a physical aspect of moving the
distance the US forces had to move, not our forces. So, I would
agree, remarkably swift.
Q623 Chairman: Did
your intelligence indicate that the Republican Guard would be
resolute, as we were all told it was going to be, the ordinary
soldiers, did you anticipate that they would chuck in the towel
fairly swiftly?
Major General Brims:
I would say that his army, which was principally what I was up
against, fought less than it might have. I thought his irregulars
fought more venomously, and actually voluminously in southern
parts, than we had anticipated; take the two together, not far
off what I hoped would be the case, rather than what, let us say,
I anticipated.
Q624 Chairman: From
the perspective of the irregulars and the ones that were captured,
did you find a high incidence of outsiders, was there any difference
between the enthusiasm to fight and whether they were Syrians,
or Jordanians, or Palestinians, or whatever, or ordinary Iraqis,
can you draw a distinction?
Major General Brims:
I think that many of the ones we caught probably allowed themselves
to be caught because, in fact, they were former soldiers who had
fled 51 Division and then were being coerced into fighting as
irregulars, and they got to a point at which they could surrender,
and therefore we could capture them. I think that some of the
others fought to the death.
Q625 Chairman: With
air power, I am sure any RAF guys in our midst would see the enormous
importance of air power, but, from your perspective, as a ground
force commander, what contribution did air power make to the rapid
defeat of the deployed Iraqi ground forces?
Major General Brims:
I think it was significant, because where we were using air at
the sort of tactical level, supporting our divisional operations,
and essentially we were tasking the 3rd Marine Air Wing of the
US Marine Corps to do it for us, we were very aware that the coalition
air was also applying its fire power in a much deeper way elsewhere,
so the combined effect. But that is a question that really would
get a more detailed answer by the NCC, or obviously the Air Component
Commander.
Q626 Chairman: What
preliminary lessons can be drawn from the degree of air/ground
co-operation and effectiveness achieved?
Major General Brims:
Utilising 3rd MAW, the Marine Air Wing, as a tactical air wing;
in order to do it, we had to receive from the American Armed Forces
what they call Anglico battalions, Anglico stands for Air, Naval,
Gunfire Liaison Officers, I think, I am not 100% perfect on it,
but they come with communications, life support vehicles, and
everything else, and you could say to them, "We need the
fire there," they will call for it, and we had them embedded
throughout our chain of command and it worked wonderfully well.
And during the training preparation phase, in Kuwait, we made
sure that we could operate with these people, it was absolutely
vital that we could, particularly, having made the early decision
that we would not take, for example, our multi-launch rocket systems,
we were determined that that was what the US Government offered
to us, and we made sure that we could utilise it to the best effect.
And I think there are some very useful lessons, militarily, to
take, because it was great.
Q627 Chairman: Was
there any difference in the arrival times of the American aircraft
that you called up or the British aircraft, as supposedly they
were interchangeable?
Major General Brims:
No. Actually, providing the fire was produced, I would not know
whether it was a British or an American one.
Q628 Chairman: Was
it the kind of air support that you had to put in a request for
24 hours before, or were you able to rustle them up fairly quickly,
if the occasion arose?
Major General Brims:
Both.
Chairman: Okay;
thank you.
Q629 Mr Roy: Major
General, we heard the stories of the dolphins clearing the Umm
Qasr waterways, and suchlike; did the securing of Umm Qasr go
to plan and timetable, frankly?
Major General Brims:
Broadly, yes. Umm Qasr was the only urban area that I was required
to take itself, everywhere else, urban areas, eventually we would
have to get into, because to remove a regime you cannot leave
them in control of an urban area, but, with the Land Component
Commander's plan, Umm Qasr was the only place I had to get into,
everywhere else, so to go into Basra, actually, I was not allowed
to go into Basra until the Land Component Commander agreed, because
that was not what his purpose was at that stage. We did get into
it immediately, and it was in the early stages of realising that
you were dealing with these irregulars, and they kept popping
up, it took us a bit of time, and that bit of the reporting I
did see, they actually said that we were in Umm Qasr, the Iraqi
Minister of Information said, "Oh, no, he's not," actually
we were in, but so were they, and there was a period of, I think,
about 24, 26 hours—
Q630 Mr Roy: It seemed
to me that the al Faw peninsula appeared to go very quickly, and
then there seemed to be a hold-up?
Major General Brims:
There was a slight hold-up there. In fact, the al Faw peninsula,
although the al Faw bit went very quickly and very successfully,
there were some quite persistent attacks just north of al Faw
town itself, which went on for a couple of days, until the Royal
Marines had defeated it in detail, which they did.
Q631 Mr Roy: The port
itself, obviously, it was critical that the British took it as
quickly as possible, but once we were there was the area large
enough for the logistical exercise and the amount of supplies
that were landing onto it, in order both to take the supplies
and, more importantly, once those supplies had landed, to keep
track of them?
Brigadier Cowlam:
We did not use Umm Qasr port for resupply. Umm Qasr port was taken,
cleared and then retained for humanitarian purposes; this was
until I left, which was early May.
Q632 Mr Roy: Yes,
but was it big enough for what we wanted to do with it?
Brigadier Cowlam:
We did not have military plans for it.
Major General Brims:
Umm Qasr port was to be taken so that humanitarian aid could come
through it, and, I do not know, I was not aware of any difficulty
on that front.
Brigadier Cowlam:
Umm Qasr port is the main food port; there are two ports in Umm
Qasr, and they are very large, the northern port is quite modern
and we found it in quite good condition, it had not been destroyed,
I think, as some people had feared.
Q633 Mr Roy: So there
was no chance of losing any supplies; humanitarian aid, once it
had landed, there was not a hold-up because people did not know
where it had landed or where it was going?
Brigadier Cowlam:
In terms of humanitarian aid, in the early stages, not a great
deal came in, because there was a problem clearing the channel
from mines, and then also dredging the channel that was there,
deepening it, so that the larger humanitarian ships could come
into it.
Q634 Mr Roy: So that
was where their problems ended, on the water base?
Brigadier Cowlam:
I did not know there were problems, because the stuff was not
coming through at this stage.
Q635 Patrick Mercer:
Gentlemen, the press presented the approach to Basra as being
unconventional tactics that were used, I do not know whether that
came across to you or not, certainly that was how it was articulated,
as far as the press was concerned. First of all, do you accept
that this was unconventional, and, if you do, why did you take
that approach?
Major General Brims:
I cannot comment on whether it was conventional or unconventional,
in that sense. Why did we take the approach. I described, we were
holding the bridges on the western outskirts of Basra, we were
coming under fire from its Armed Forces and counter-attacks, and
that situation lasted for about two weeks. Around al Zubayr, with
a population of about 100,000, we were coming under attack from
irregulars, who were operating in and from al Zubayr, and we had
taken some casualties, we had two of our Royal Engineers missing,
and we realised what was going on. First of all, we had to reconfigure
ourselves to protect our softer targets, to minimise the number
of targets, and 7 Armoured Brigade, whose area this was, did that
very quickly. And I talked to the Brigade Commander, I cannot
remember the date, but we were about four or five days into the
thing, one evening I was there with him, we were talking through
it, and he said, "I'm going to work out how we're going to
take al Zubayr," and I said, "Good, I'll go away and
consider Basra." And he said, "I've got the most powerful
Armoured Brigade the British Army's ever put in the field, and
I'll back-brief you on my bit, of al Zubayr, tomorrow morning."
I arranged to see him first thing in the morning, and his commanders
were all there, and he asked me to come aside of him for a short
time, and he said to me, "I've worked out, we can't go into
al Zubayr using the most powerful force at my disposal, because
that's what the regime want; we'll inflict undue casualties, we'll
take undue casualties, we will hurt the civilians, we'll wreck
the infrastructure, and that's what he's after. We've got to do
it in a more cunning way." And I said to him, "Well,
that's funny, because I've worked out precisely the same thing
for Basra." And we went for what was going to be a smoke
break but we didn't even have chance to smoke, because actually
we had worked out the same conclusion, and then we set about doing
it unconventionally, if that is the way we did it. And the way
we did it was to build up an intelligence picture, focused raids,
ground raids, air raids, mind raids. All the time, what we were
trying to do was destroy the regime and drive a wedge between
the regime and the ordinary people, bearing in mind that the people
in that southern part of Iraq, where we were, were Shia people,
who had actually been the victims of the regime for 20 years,
or more, and they had been the victims in the Iran/Iraq war, to
and fro'ed across the area. Basra had never changed hands but
al Faw had, and they suffered under the 1991 war, then they had
their uprising in 1991, which was brutally put down, and they
were abused, and I was aware of them continuing to be abused during
the war, during the very days that I am describing to you. And,
therefore, essentially, they were ripe for being liberated, and
part of the intelligence success, done very much bottom-up, because
these were people who wanted us to come in, they wanted to be
freed but they could not do it themselves, they needed our support,
and therefore actually we had them helping us, and they were feeding
us intelligence, and accurate intelligence, worthy targets, and
the system trusted us and we were able to conduct these raids,
and they had a very significant effect.
Q636 Patrick Mercer:
Thank you. Did you come under pressure to enter and secure Basra
before you did, eventually?
Major General Brims:
No. As I said earlier on, I had complete freedom to conduct operations
as we, in 1 Div, saw fit.
Q637 Patrick Mercer:
Was there any linkage between the fall of Baghdad and the fall
of Basra; for instance, did you deliberately wait for Baghdad
to be taken?
Major General Brims:
It was a discussion point, but, as I indicated earlier, I had
asked General McKiernan, who was the Land Component Commander,
on a number of occasions, I said, "What are the conditions
in which you would wish me to go into Basra, because, fine, we
have got to go in?" And he said, "I don't want to go
into Basra until I have attended to isolating the regime,"
because that was the purpose of what we called phase three of
the operation, and he said that was a superior mission. And, therefore,
actually, I knew that I did not need to go into Basra fast, I
realised that removing the regime from Basra would certainly help
in removing the regime from Baghdad; failing to remove it, or
doing it messily, would actually have the reverse effect on Baghdad,
so timing. And, I think, the moment at which we did go into Basra,
a combination of a number of things, the fact that they had suddenly
realised that they had two Corps surrounding Baghdad, the fact
that our raids had been very successful, we really had driven
this wedge, and the people increasingly had the confidence to
turn against the people who were oppressing them. The optic that
we were displaying, we had got into al Faw, Umm Qasr, Rumala,
and, of course, we had al Zubayr latterly, and that we were co-operating
with the people, we were giving them back their dignity and self-respect.
We did target, known as, Chemical Ali, and I do not know whether
we got him or not, but the point was, on 4 April, we conducted
that attack, and in the ensuing 36 hours the people of Basra thought
he was dead, and that was important, because they were utterly,
utterly terrified of him, terrified of him, you could reduce people
to shaking. And I think all of those things came to the moment
that, on 6 April, when we pushed, we found that we could get in.
Q638 Patrick Mercer:
How much influence do you think your style of operating in Basra
had upon American operations in Baghdad?
Major General Brims:
I do not know, because I was operating fully in the way we were
doing. What I can say though is we did a lot, even during the
war, of interchange of tactics and techniques between ourselves
and the US Marine Division, in the MEF, and we did swap ideas,
tactics and techniques.
Q639 Chairman: On
air support, did the support of the helicopter fleet meet all
of the logistics needs you had; any changes there that might be
made?
Major General Brims:
The support helicopters met a number of different needs for us
on the logistics side.
Brigadier Cowlam:
We did not use support helicopters a great deal, primarily because
the distances and the quality of the terrain and roads that we
were operating over really did not require us to use them.
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