Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1461-1479)
REAR ADMIRAL
DAVID SNELSON
AND BRIGADIER
JAMES DUTTON
CBE ADC
3 DECEMBER 2003
Q1461 Chairman: Welcome, gentlemen. If
you would like to make some opening remarks, that might be quite
helpful, please?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Thank you,
Mr Chairman and the Committee, for inviting me and Brigadier Dutton
here today. I am grateful for the opportunity to make some opening
remarks on the role played by maritime forces during Operation
Telic, and to this end I thought it might be useful just to outline
the maritime contribution in order to set a backdrop to the questions
which you and the Committee have. My role during the operation
was as the UK Maritime Commander and my staff and I were based
in Bahrain alongside the US Maritime Commander, to whom I acted
as the Deputy for the Coalition Maritime Force. The UK maritime
forces under command comprised some 34 ships of the Royal Navy,
the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and contract merchant ships, plus three
maritime patrol aircraft based in Oman, which were the lynch-pin
of the maritime surveillance effort. The Royal Navy also provided
two Tomahawk-firing submarines although, strictly speaking, these
were kept under command directly from Northwood. Although the
force provided transport support and the launch platform for 3
Commando Brigade, the Royal Marines were not under my command
and I simply facilitated their deployment for Brigadier Dutton,
with me here today, who worked for General Robin Brims. In total,
the Naval Service contributed some 9,000 personnel to the campaign.
In addition, over 60 chartered merchant ships carried about 95%
of the UK air and land forces' equipment to the Gulf. In summary,
the UK maritime contribution to Operation Telic provided four
key elements. Amphibious shipping, which delivered the men and
equipment of 3 Commando Brigade. The mine counter-measures shipping.
The Royal Navy played a significant part in the clearance of the
Khawr Abd Allah waterway and the opening of the port of Umm Qasr.
A strike capability provided by the two RN Tomahawk submarines.
Then escorts, protection for the force consisting of six frigates
and destroyers. As I mentioned, my staff and I were based in Bahrain,
co-located with the US Maritime Commander. The Royal Navy had
established a headquarters there in the wake of 9/11, with the
UK Commander acting as the Deputy Coalition Joint Force Maritime
Commander for Operation Enduring Freedom, the campaign against
al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The decision to establish
this headquarters was a significant factor in the success of the
UK maritime contribution to the Iraq operation. I hope this provides
the Committee with an overview into the key elements of support
that maritime forces provided to the overall operation in Iraq.
Q1462 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Could you give us an indication as to how the maritime component
was arrived at, in terms of size and shape, and where that planning
was done, where the decisions were made, what the role was of
the Navy? What was the process?
Rear Admiral Snelson: The process
was driven largely from the headquarters in Bahrain. Because I
was in Bahrain already, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom,
it meant from the very early stages of planning that inevitably
we were engaged with the American Maritime Commander who was considering
the various options. The process whereby we arrived at what the
maritime contribution should be was basically to look at the effect
that we had to produce for the Joint Commander, Air Marshal Burridge,
on the ground. One of the early considerations was the opening
of the port of Umm Qasr. That was a specified task very early
on in the planning, and for that we knew we would need mine counter-measures
ships, so that part of the contribution was clear from the outset.
In order to do that task, it quickly became apparent that we would
need to occupy elements of Iraqi territory close to the waterway
so that the Mine Counter-Measures Vessels could operate safely.
It was that which led, in the first instance, to the consideration
for an amphibious contribution. Of course, this was done with
the backdrop of a likely UK land contribution being from the north,
so the amphibious element was a limited operation, in the first
concept, to support the mine counter-measures forces. When it
was decided the UK land element would be coming from the south,
it made a great deal of sense to grow that into a brigade-sized
operation to make sure that we had occupied and taken the oil
infrastructure on the Al Faw peninsula—and Brigadier Dutton
can talk about this later—as well as contribute to the UK
land effort. Precision strike Tomahawk submarines clearly were
required for tasking against specific targets, then, of course,
we needed a frigate and destroyer force for protection, and we
needed the logistics back-up at sea as well. There was a sequential
logic, if you like, to the maritime force capability.
Q1463 Chairman: At what stage did you
realise there would be a change of entry point from a northern
to a southern?
Rear Admiral Snelson: It is difficult
to pin down an exact date. I think the final decision was not
made until January, but it was becoming more obvious in December
that was a likely outcome, and that affected the decisions that
were being made on the size and shape of the amphibious force.
I do not know whether you want to comment on that element of it?
Brigadier Dutton: I think you
have covered most of it. It was going to be, first of all, just
one Commando unit, in conjunction with the SEALs, the US Naval
Special Warfare Group. As it became apparent that there was a
potentially bigger enemy threat in that area in order to package
the tasks more neatly with the Al Faw and Umm Qasr together, it
made sense to increase the size of the Royal Marine contribution,
and added to that was the UK Army contribution coming from the
south as well.
Q1464 Chairman: Thank you. The Ministry
of Defence's Annual Report and Accounts for 2002-03 reports that
"readiness" performance for the Royal Navy/Royal Marines
was 91%, down from 93% the year before, and 95% in 2000-01. It
said also that a shortage of trained personnel posed further challenges
to the readiness of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. The
Annual Report says also that equipment defects, particularly in
the submarine fleet, and a shortage of some helicopter spares
limited fleet availability. How did these issues affect the contribution
of the UK maritime component to Operation Telic, (a) in ships,
(b) other equipment, and (c) personnel?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Shall I
try to break it down in that way and start with ships and their
readiness. In one sense, our readiness was good because the amphibious
force was the first land formation that was available to Air Marshal
Burridge and it was ready, in theatre, round about the middle
of February, which was the date that General Franks said that
he wanted the forces available. That is a classic use of maritime
force, inasmuch as we do not have the complications in quite the
same way of Host Nation support, and so on, so we could be ready
on the date required. At that headline level, the readiness was
good. Of course, demonstrably, we had the force that we needed
because the job was complete. However, there were elements of
forces that we ought to have had available that we did not have.
The defence planning assumptions require two aircraft carriers,
one at high readiness, one at lower readiness, two landing platform
docks, one at high readiness, one at low readiness, they are specialist
amphibious ships, one helicopter carrier, known as an LPH, landing
platform helicopter, plus the supporting shipping, specialist
shipping for amphibious. At the time we were planning the operation,
we had out of those major units only one fixed-wing carrier and
one helicopter carrier. The previous LPDs, to use that jargon,
Fearless and Intrepid, have been paid off and the two new LPDs
which are coming into service, Albion and Bulwark, are not with
us yet. I should add immediately that this situation is improving
almost day by day. HMS Albion has now completed her first work-up
and is with the fleet, and HMS Bulwark will be delivered in about
a year's time, so things are improving. It meant that we did not
have the ideal force package for an amphibious operation, and
therefore we had to maximise the helicopter lift and that is why
we converted Ark Royal to being a helicopter carrier, not a fixed-wing
carrier, so that we got maximum capability. Before answering your
other questions, I would turn perhaps to Brigadier Dutton.
Q1465 Chairman: Did you have only one
carrier available?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Yes.
Q1466 Chairman: Why was that? We have
three, do we not?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Yes, we
do. At the time, the refit programme for the three carriers meant
that we had one carrier which was just entering refit and another
emerging from refit, that is HMS Invincible, which is now out
of refit, and only HMS Ark Royal was available.
Q1467 Chairman: So that genius the British
have, we are told, of improvisation could not work then, as far
as the carriers were concerned?
Rear Admiral Snelson: I think
our job clearly was to take those force elements that we had and
make the best use of them, which is what we did.
Q1468 Chairman: They had a little bit
of time. There was no chance of accelerating the programme?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Not in the
timescales we were talking about.
Q1469 Chairman: And the personnel?
Rear Admiral Snelson: If I can
split that into two, Mr Chairman, and deal with the purely ship
side of it, if you like, and then talk about the Royal Marines
side of it. The personnel factor did not affect the ships per
se that much. I had virtually all of the ships I needed, apart
from those major units I have mentioned which absolutely were
not available because of refit or building programmes. Where personnel
did affect us probably most of all was that had I required more
destroyers and frigates for escort purposes then the demands of
Operation Fresco, the support for the fire-fighting, and so on,
would have curtailed the number of ships we could have had at
some point, was my judgment. In terms of the ships that we had
being manned properly then they were manned properly and that
did not have a direct impact on me in the front line.
Brigadier Dutton: In terms of
units, we deployed the whole of 3 Commando Brigade, less 45 Commando
which was committed elsewhere.
Q1470 Chairman: Can you tell us where
else they were deployed?
Brigadier Dutton: One large company
was deployed on Operation Fresco duties, and the other two companies
were deployed in support of this operation, in support of SF,
and so were not available to me, as the Brigade Commander. A decision
was made quite early on, a joint decision by ourselves and the
Americans, that 15 MEU, an Expeditionary Unit of the USMC who
were allocated already to this area, were going to be placed under
my command for the first part of the operation. In unit terms,
we had sufficient units, in that the Brigade was complete, albeit
with an American unit forming the third unit. In terms of overall
manpower, there has been a shortage of manpower, reflected in
your percentage figures at the beginning, Mr Chairman, in the
Royal Marines for the last nine, ten years. Actually, that situation
is improving now, we are almost in manpower balance, though not
necessarily in rank balance. We deployed on this operation slightly
under strength, more or less at peace establishment, so with sufficient
people to do the job.
Q1471 Chairman: You were topped up with
Reservists?
Brigadier Dutton: Yes, we took
Reservists. From the Royal Marines Reserve we took 112, which
is nearly 25%, between 20 and 25% of the trained strength, I have
to say, of the Royal Marines Reserve. We have also a Reserve Engineer
Unit, called 131 Squadron, the headquarters of which is based
in north London, who are very deployable and available, and we
took well in excess of 100 of them as well, to form a second engineer
squadron.
Q1472 Chairman: Were you still under
strength with the Reserves added on to your force?
Brigadier Dutton: Yes. Overall,
in comparison with establishment strength, we were slightly under
strength. We deployed more or less at peace establishment.
Q1473 Chairman: What would you say was
the impact of Operation Fresco on the Royal Navy and the maritime
component for Operation Telic?
Rear Admiral Snelson: I would
say, overall, Mr Chairman, there was not a direct impact on the
front-line fighting forces that we had, but it impacted on the
ability to draw forward more forces, had we needed them, against
an enemy who had more capability himself at sea or was determined
to fight back further. The refit and readiness and building that
I mentioned of the capital units is a separate effect.
Q1474 Chairman: On impact, I was thinking
more in terms of performance and whether your training and equipment
allowed you to make the impact that was demanded of you by those
above your pay grade?
Rear Admiral Snelson: The impact
of Operation Fresco, if that is what you are concentrating on,
Mr Chairman, it did not have any impact in terms of our training
and our readiness of the forces that were in theatre. The Commander-in-Chief
Fleet's organisation had separated out deliberately those ships
that were contributing manpower to Operation Fresco from those
that were contributing to Operation Telic, so the two did not
interact, it was only an availability issue, like of follow-on
forces.
Q1475 Chairman: I asked questions earlier,
in terms of equipment performance. Can you tell us frankly what
were the difficulties, where you were short of equipment, or it
did not work quite the way you had anticipated it would work?
Rear Admiral Snelson: There are
two separate issues there, I think, Mr Chairman. One is the availability
of spares for the equipment we had, and if I deal with that now.
The impact of spares availability, for those of us in the Gulf
deployed in the operation, was not huge. However, that was because
significant quantities of spares—and I do not have good,
illustrative figures immediately to hand—were drawn forward
to make sure that the forces in the Gulf were supported properly,
quite rightly so. That did have an impact on those forces that
were still in the UK being held at readiness for other operations,
inasmuch as, for instance, flying rates could not be supported
in the same way because spares perhaps were not as readily available
for those units back in the UK. Given some of those units were
contributing to Fresco anyway, that in itself did not have an
immediate impact. I think, probably, summarising the impact of
Fresco overall, the fleet is just coming to the end of training
up those units for full front-line duties that were caught up
in the provision for Fresco. I have to be careful not to talk
too much about Fresco because I was not running anything to do
with Fresco and clearly it was outside my area of responsibility.
In terms of equipment, the other dimension to equipment is urgent
operational requirements. I think the urgent operational requirements
could be divided really into two categories. Those sorts of things
that we had known we would want for operations, I would characterise
the sorts of things, like night-vision goggles, electro-optic
equipment in helicopters, and so on, to enable them to see small
boats in the dark. These had been articulated for some time as
required in the defence equipment programme but had not been procured,
largely for reasons of affordability, although almost all of what
we did need then was procured, brought into service, training
was done rapidly and, for the most part, it was effective. There
were other UORs which were specific to the operation. As an example,
on the maritime side, specialist mine-hunting equipment which
was necessary because of the very unusual waters in which we were
mine-hunting, which we could not have foreseen, which were a direct
requirement from the operation, which were procured and brought
into service. Those are the two categories of urgent operational
requirements. Do you have similar examples on the land side?
Brigadier Dutton: Yes. We had
quite a lot of UORs, in fact, most of this equipment was not unfamiliar
because it had been acquired for the operation in Afghanistan
the previous year, but as it was UOR it had been withdrawn afterwards.
This is all the dismounted, close-combat kit which was particularly
valuable and that was issued again: helmet-mounted night-vision
goggles, thermal-imaging sights, under-slung grenade launchers,
those sorts of things, which probably you are well aware of. In
addition, I think probably one of our most successful UORs was
a very low-tech thing, which was quad-bikes for the carriage of
snipers and ammunition and support weapons, ideal on the Al Faw
peninsula. So quite a number of UORs, a lot of which now are being
taken into the equipment programme and we are expecting to get
on a permanent basis very soon.
Q1476 Chairman: Was it an option for
you to employ more ships or helicopters? I know you touched upon
this. I know we all want more than we are capable of getting,
but ideally what numbers would you have required?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Mr Chairman,
any military commander would always like more if he could get
it. I think the only units that I would have liked to have are
those major units that were not available, an aircraft carrier
in its prime role to add to the close-escort capability, and one,
or even two, of the landing platform docks which would have helped
the Brigade Commander get a build-up of combat power ashore more
quickly. More escorts in different scenarios would have been helpful.
Q1477 Mr Havard: Can I take you back
to what you said about commercial shipping and its usage. You
talked about 50-plus, whatever, vessels being used, 95% of the
equipment being taken in this way, so this strategic use of commercial
shipping is of interest, particularly, I think, the question about
their use. If expeditionary forces are going to be the thing of
the future, it is not going to be just this occasion but lessons
for the future, which I would like to ask about specifically a
bit later on. A lot of this is flags of convenience. They are
not British-registered ships and they are crewed by foreign nationals,
as well as, some of them, of course, the Fleet Auxiliary, and
so on, being British Reservists, and so on, so there is this mixture.
I would like to know your observations about things like, for
example, your confidence in security, common standards across
the piece, in terms of their operation, how they related one to
another, and so on, the general conduct of having that mixture?
Rear Admiral Snelson: First of
all, there are two things to provide background to an answer.
There were two categories, if you like, of merchant ships. There
was a small number taken under permanent charter to be part of
the amphibious task group, and that always had been part of our
concept of operations. There was then a very large number of merchant
ships, between 50 and 60, which were chartered by the Defence
Logistics Organisation in order to carry all the land and air
equipment out to the Middle East. I was not involved or responsible
for any of the chartering, it was done by the Defence Logistics
Organisation. As far as that shipping was concerned, my responsibility
did not start until they had got to the eastern end of the Mediterranean
and the Suez Canal, and my responsibilities were to make sure
that, in terms of being at sea, they got safely through those
final 3,000 miles of water. I had no input into the business of
which flag, which company, which standards, or anything like that,
so I can speak only from the perspective of where I sat and my
involvement in it. All the merchant ships, which we had, met the
requirement in terms of delivery of the capability to the Middle
East. We were able to provide reasonable protection for them through
the choke points at the bottom of the Red Sea, where terrorist
attacks have occurred in the last couple of years, and through
the Strait of Hormuz, largely because of the presence of coalition
shipping during Operation Enduring Freedom. From the Bahrain headquarters,
we communicated with those commercial ships, in order to know
where they were, in order to co-ordinate their protection, but
that was the extent of my responsibility for those ships. I am
answering hardly half of your question, but if I answered much
of what you are driving at it would be outside my area of competence
and responsibility and knowledge.
Q1478 Mr Havard: I am sure you recognise
there is concern about these sorts of issues. Particularly, I
notice the American Government and certainly the General Accounting
Office, have made particular observations about their lack of
confidence, if you like, that, generally, as a matter of strategy,
it is a good idea to put such a large percentage of this transport
into what is somewhat uncertain, as it were, from the standards
that they would want to apply. As I understand it, their approach
is then to have a pool of domestic shipping which they can use
in the future. I am trying to find out whether or not you have
any views about that, because, as I understand it, in the last
five years, for example, only a third of the 360-odd, I am told,
ships that have been commissioned in this way, or chartered in
this way, actually have been British-registered ships? Two-thirds
of the shipping we are using is foreign, which often is crewed
by foreign nationals, so is this a good idea, is this a way forward?
Rear Admiral Snelson: Clearly,
there is an element of risk, if you rely on shipping that is not
flagged to your own nation to move your expeditionary forces abroad,
and the Department has recognised that element of risk and is
investing in shipping. The roll-on/roll-off ships, which will
be operated commercially but available to the MoD, meet a considerable
part of that requirement. The more specialist ships, called, in
the jargon, landing ship docks, LSDs, four of them are being built
which will be Royal Fleet Auxiliary-manned, will give much better
capability to the amphibious force and probably will remove the
need for those core chartered merchant ships in the amphibious
force.
Q1479 Mr Havard: I think what has been
recognised, to us certainly, is that there has been success in
deploying the ro-ro ships and the Fleet Auxiliary. You were able
to move much more quickly in terms of the deployment than you
were, say, for example, in 1991, as a consequence, so we understand
those benefits. I am concerned still about where the weight of
emphasis is, in relation to things that are not directly under
our control?
Rear Admiral Snelson: As I outlined,
the Department is investing in more shipping, which it will have
directly under its control. The Department then has to make a
judgment and, at the end of the day, it is a political judgment,
not a military judgment, of how much money it puts into shipping
that it has a handle on, compared with shipping that is or is
not readily available from the commercial market. Our recent experience
would seem to indicate, and I say this as a person who was not
involved in the chartering, that the shipping at that time was
readily available, but it is for others to judge whether or not
it might be readily available this year, next year or the year
after. I think what the Department has done is recognised that
it needs to have control over some of the shipping but that it
takes a degree of risk over the rest of the shipping. Frankly,
that is a question of judgment.
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