In the absence of the Chairman, Syd Rapson
was called to the Chair.
Examination of Witnesses (Questions 863-879)
LIEUTENANT GENERAL
JOHN REITH
CB CBE, MR IAN
LEE AND
REAR ADMIRAL
CHARLES STYLE
CBE
9 JULY 2003
Q863 Syd Rapson: Can I start the
meeting by making two apologies. Firstly, for keeping you waiting.
We took longer in our private session trying to talk things through,
as is normal for we politicians. Secondly, the Chairman is away
on other parliamentary business, along with other members of the
Committee. So apologies from us all on that, and I hope that the
afternoon will go fairly informally. We do intend to finish at
five o'clock, which might help you, to know the end time, and
because of that if we could give short questions and short answers
it would be more than welcome, but we have got a five o'clock
finish time plugged in. It will probably ruin the whole programme
but at least we know where we stand. First of all, can I ask the
original question that was laid down for the Chairman, which opens
things up, and this is mainly to you, Lieutenant General. Can
you explain briefly to the Committee the role of the Permanent
Joint Headquarters and the Chief of Joint Operations within it,
and clarify your role in the command chain of Operation Telic?
Lieutenant General Reith: Yes,
of course. The Permanent Joint Headquarters was formed just over
six years ago. Having reviewed previous operations, we found that
we needed a permanent Headquarters to run them. The system works
that the Permanent Joint Headquarters is part of the Defence Crisis
Management Organisation. We have a direct link with the MoD and
we work with the Policy and Commitments area in the MoD very,
very closely indeed, and we have a daily video teleconference
link with the MoD, and clearly my staff are talking to them on
an hourly basis. The Chief of Joint Operations works directly
for the Chief of Defence Staff, and he has responsibility for
planning, mounting, directing, sustaining and recovering all troops
on operations abroad, and I have a responsibility only for outside
of the UK. So in that process my Headquarters does the operational
level planning and gives politically aware military advice into
the MoD, and then the MoD puts the strategic piece on top of the
operational piece in the decision-making process that goes before
ministers.
Q864 Syd Rapson: Thank you. We took
evidence from Air Marshal Burridge, but how did your working relationship
with him operate during the major combat phase?
Lieutenant General Reith: I was
the Joint Commander and I was delegated by CDS, and the single
Services then put their troops under my command. As the Operational
Commander, I had command, I delegated operational control to Air
Marshal Burridge, and therefore he was controlling the operation
as the man in theatre dealing with the detail.
Q865 Syd Rapson: That is a regular
link, all the time, on an hourly basis?
Lieutenant General Reith: That
is within our doctrine, that we put forward either a Joint Commander
in theatre or a National Contingent Commander; in this particular
case, because we were junior partners, obviously, in the conflict,
with the Americans, he was a National Contingent Commander.
Q866 Syd Rapson: Did you ever consider
having a Permanent Joint Command in theatre?
Lieutenant General Reith: One
of the lessons which I have drawn from this operation is that
maybe our doctrine is wrong, we have to review it. It may well
have been, with modern communication, that actually, as the Joint
Commander, I could have been forward and still performed the function
that I did for the Chiefs of Staff Committee and ministers in
the briefing process during the conflict from Qatar on a video
teleconference link.
Syd Rapson: Thank you.
Q867 Mr Howarth: General, what percentage
of your staff based at PJHQ were detailed for Operation Telic?
Lieutenant General Reith: What
do you mean by `detailed'?
Q868 Mr Howarth: How much of the
operation at PJHQ was set aside for the running of the campaign,
and how much of it was left to run the day-to-day business, if
you like?
Lieutenant General Reith: That
is very difficult to answer, and I am not being evasive. I work
a system where we form what we call an operational team, they
are the only people dedicated to the operation, and in the case
of Telic it was about 12 people. They work a 24-hour shift, with
the link into theatre, they act as the conduit into the staff,
and the staff branches then answer all the questions and do all
the work required to support the people in theatre, using that
as a conduit. Those staff branches also, of course, were doing
all the other concurrent operations, Afghanistan, the Balkans,
we put a battalion into Sierra Leone during the period, and so
forth. I cannot say specifically. If you ask me, just off the
top of my head, I would say about 50 per cent of our effort, maybe
a bit more, was on Telic during the operation.
Q869 Mr Howarth: Can you remind us
how many people are employed under your command at PJHQ?
Lieutenant General Reith: I have
a basic establishment of 460, and during the Telic period then
we built it up right through Afghanistan, and ever since Operation
Enduring Freedom started I have been running at about 550.
Q870 Mr Howarth: Was PJHQ's involvement
in Operation Telic different from its involvement in other operations,
such as Kosovo? Did you learn any lessons from Kosovo which have
been applied during this campaign, or indeed lessons from Afghanistan,
more recently?
Lieutenant General Reith: What
we did was no different from any other operations that we do.
We learn after every single operation. The immediate thing, during
an operation and after it, is to draw lessons from it, and, once
identified, obviously, then look at how we can resource to make
the changes.
Q871 Mr Howarth: Given that, as you
were just telling us, you were running a number of operations
simultaneously, were you satisfied that you had enough people,
even with this augmentation of about a hundred, that you have
just referred to?
Lieutenant General Reith: I was
very happy with what I had. My people were working very hard,
but, nonetheless, there were sufficient to do the task.
Q872 Mr Howarth: They were stretched,
not overstretched?
Lieutenant General Reith: Correct.
Q873 Mr Howarth: You mentioned earlier
that you are part of the Defence Crisis Management Organisation.
Looking at the general structures, how well do those current structures
for PJHQ work within the Defence Crisis Management Organisation
function?
Lieutenant General Reith: I would
say, after nearly two years in this job, extremely well. Clearly,
very often it comes down to personalities, but I have a very good
relationship, as do my staff, with all the branches within the
MoD, and we talk to them, as I say, on a daily basis, and if we
do have any differences of opinion we get together and we sort
them out.
Q874 Mr Howarth: So your overall
verdict, as a result of this campaign, has been that the systems,
structures, have been tested, work well and the personnel are
sufficient to carry out the functions?
Lieutenant General Reith: I am
confident of that, and I am blessed that I have got such quality
people in my Headquarters.
Q875 Mr Cran: General, moving on
to planning and working with the Americans, the Committee have
received varying indications of when your Headquarters started
planning for the operation in question. I wonder if you could
tell us, as it were, from the horse's mouth, when you did start
planning?
Lieutenant General Reith: I have
had staff embedded with Centcom, in Tampa, since the twin tower
bombing in New York, very shortly afterwards, because we were
then preparing for Afghanistan, and I have left them in place.
So I have that permanent link in with Centcom Headquarters. It
was in about May last year when we picked up that the Americans
were doing some, what they call, `no foreigners' planning, to
which we were not allowed access, which was unusual, because normally
we have very, very good access on everything. Clearly, there was
a decision, I think in June of last year, by the Americans to
bring the UK and Australia in on their planning cycle. I then
got authority from the Ministry of Defence to get involved in
that planning, on the basis of no UK commitment.
Q876 Mr Cran: That was when?
Lieutenant General Reith: That
was end of June last year, and we have been involved with the
planning, with the Americans, ever since, obviously right through
the combat phase and still now, dealing with the aftermath.
Q877 Mr Cran: This document, which
you will be well aware of, First Reflections, it says, at paragraph
2.4, and I will just quote it to you: "While overall planning
for the operation was led by the United States, the UK was fully
involved, including through personnel embedded" as you have
said just now, "in US Central Command in Tampa and elsewhere."
What I think the Committee would like to know is, how did that
really work, in practice? The bald words suggest that it all works
terribly well, and all the rest of it. Talk us through this?
Lieutenant General Reith: It worked
extremely well. Altogether, at Tampa, I had approaching 40 people,
of which roughly half were embedded staff working as Staff Officers
in the American Headquarters, giving UK staff power into their
system, and actually we are very good at this. I had then a UK
team working with them, alongside, of roughly 20, with a 2*, a
Major General, who was really my link in to Tommy Franks. We were
involved in the planning, as I said, we had a very close-hold
group back in PJHQ and in London, which we christened the Warrior
Group, which did the planning on a very close-hold basis, so it
did not get out generally in the early stages, until we were more
certain of any form of commitment. The staff at Tampa were able
to influence the American planning and inform the American planning
and ensure that the chiefs and ministers here in London knew what
was going on all the time, as the plans were progressed. I refined
that further, as time progressed, and I embedded staff into the
Land, Air and Naval Component Headquarters as well, so that then
we got into the detailed planning of each of those components,
and again contributed to the planning and were able to influence
them. What we were able to do, I think, was put a degree of sensitivity
into the planning. The American military machine is on an industrial
scale and therefore tends to be slightly less, shall we say, flexible
and sensitive than we are, and I think we helped contribute in
that way, and I know that General Franks appreciated our contribution.
Q878 Mr Cran: Could we get behind
the words for just a second, and you introduced `sensitivity'
into it. What does that mean, could you tell the Committee what
that means? I know it is difficult, because you will not want
to go into the details, or anything, but in a broadbrush way,
could you tell us how we influenced the Americans, apart from
that, if we did?
Lieutenant General Reith: Yes.
Clearly, we were going into combat. In combat normally you use
massive fire-power for effect, and, shall we say, the more massive
the fire-power the more effective you will be in destroying your
enemy. Also we were hugely conscious of the fact that we were
liberating Iraq and the people, not subjugating it, and therefore
we wanted to break as little china as possible, because we knew
that we would have to either replace it or mend it afterwards.
It is in that respect that we were able to influence the Americans
and, very closely with them, look at all the targeting and at
the way we were going to conduct the operations to minimise casualties
to the civilians and minimise damage.
Q879 Mr Cran: Just one more supplementary,
Mr Rapson, then I will pass on. If I asked you, in the light of
the experience which you have just had, with the co-operation
and the arrangements which you had with the Americans, would you
do it exactly the same next time, would you, if there were to
be a next time?
Lieutenant General Reith: If there
were to be one, we would, yes.
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