Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1240
- 1259)
WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2003
AIR MARSHAL
GLENN TORPY
CBE DSO AND AIR
COMMODORE CHRIS
NICKOLS
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 Regiment sqns. 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;
the campaign plan placed significant stress on the overall E3
capability of the coalition. Our air-to-air refuelling capability.
We deployed both VC10s and Tristars; about 40% of the offload
from those aircraft went to the US Marine Corps and 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 GR7.
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 reconnaissance capability, with
the maritime Nimrod MR2, with a newer camera—and of course
all of our tactical platforms, GR4 Tornado, Harrier and Jaguar
have a tactical reconnaissance 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—but 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 ASTOR, 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 the force coming 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's essential 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 the 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 reconnaissance 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 reconnaissance
assets and whether we would need to displace some other resources.
In the end our judgment was, given the tactical reconnaissance
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 reconnaissance 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 fast jet 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 staff 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 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 PJHQ, 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 PJHQ 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.
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