Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE 2004
MR MARTIN
HOWARD AND
MAJOR GENERAL
NICK HOUGHTON
Q1 Mr Viggers: Thank you for joining
us. I am sorry that you were kept waiting a few minutes, we had
some important business to do and we also had to vote twice which
delayed us for half an hour before we commenced business this
afternoon. Mr Howard, would you care to introduce yourself and
your colleague?
Mr Howard: I am Martin Howard
and I am Director General, Operational Policy, Ministry of Defence.
My colleague is Major General Nick Houghton, who is Assistant
Chief of Defence Staff (Operations).
Q2 Mr Viggers: Thank you. May I start
by asking you to explain the legal authority for the presence
of British forces now in Iraq and post-30 June? Can you try to
put that in terms which we and even the public can understand?
Mr Howard: I shall try and do
that, Chairman. We are obviously concerned that this is dealt
with properly and we are dealing with it in a number of respects.
In the first instance of course, United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1546 provides part of the legal basis, together with
the side letters from Prime Minister Allawi and the US Secretary
of State, and with the combination of those two things we are
very content that that covers our authority to be there, our authority
to carry out operations including offensive operations where necessary
and also, if need be, to detain people in the event of the precise
words "imperative security need" There are a number
of other issues that need to be resolved before 30 June to do
with what we would call a status of forces agreement. These are
issues such as jurisdiction, access to country and in-country
real estate issues. Those issues are being discussed now between
the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Interim Iraqi Government.
The IIG, if I can use that abbreviation, is aware of what we need
and understands what we need and it is really a question of sorting
out precise mechanisms for giving protection and cover to our
forces in those areas that I have described. We think it is most
likely that this will be done by amending Coalition Provisional
Authority or CPA orders which already exist and which cover these
sort of issues for us in the pre-30 June environment. The Transitional
Administrative Law does allow for CPA orders to continue after
30 June so it seems very likely that with the agreement of IIG
the amendments to those will give us the cover we are looking
for. That is where we are at the moment. There is still some work
to doit looks like it is mostly tidying upbut we
are confident that it will be resolved by 30 June.
Q3 Mr Viggers: And resolution 1546:
"Notes that the presence of the multinational force is at
the request of the incoming Interim Government of Iraq."
Mr Howard: That is right, yes.
Q4 Mr Viggers: Which of course was
effectively appointed by the occupying forces?
Mr Howard: I think the membership
of the government was endorsed by the United Nations as well.
Q5 Mr Viggers: So will there be a
lacuna on 30 June or do you envisage that the negotiations will
resolve that?
Mr Howard: We believe they will
be resolved by 30 June.
Q6 Mr Viggers: Are there any practical
differences between the mandates under Resolution 1511 and Resolution
1546?
Mr Howard: I do not believe there
are any differences. I do not believe there are any.
Major General Houghton: Perhaps
if I were to say that from the point of view of the way in which
the multinational force will operate, quite clearly, prior to
30 June the way in which the coalition forces operated was very
much within their own chain of command and to a strategy that
was laid down by that chain of command. The major difference in
reality on the ground post the 30th is what is described in UNSCR
side letters as a partnership will exist between what is now known
as the multinational force and the Iraqi sovereign authority.
So there will not be, as it were, allowance for independent action
taken outside the consensus of that partnership. That will play
out on the ground through a series of cascading committees, at
the top of which will sit the Ministerial Committee for National
Security, which will be chaired by Dr Allawi, the Iraqi Prime
Minister, and will have broad representation on that group from,
amongst others, the MNF senior commanders and also from the Ministry
of the Interior and Ministry of Defence and that will cascade
down now to a national security executive group who, if you like,
will turn that general strategy for the campaign into more detailed
orders, one set of which will pass down the Iraqi chain of command
and one down the MNF chain of command to ensure that there is
a unity of effort in what is being carried out. That will then
cascade further down so for example at provincial level there
will be a provincial security committee. This provincial level
will be chaired by the local governor and he will have representatives
from both the MNF but also from within the various elements of
the Iraqi security forces and police and so on. Similarly they
will ensure unity of effort in carrying out the nature of the
overall mandated mission.
Q7 Mike Gapes: Can I probe a bit
further on this. Both Security Council Resolution 1511 and Security
Resolution 1546 talk about a multinational force under unified
command and you have mentioned, Major General, a unified command.
Do you envisage changes in command relationships for British forces
after 30 June from what they are currently?
Mr Howard: Within the MNF?
Q8 Mike Gapes: I will explore the
different levels of this. Do you in general envisage changes?
Mr Howard: In general within the
MNFI within that construct I do not think we will see any changes
but there are obviously changes in the overall way in which we
work with the Iraqi Authority, as General Houghton described.
Q9 Mike Gapes: We visited Basra five
weeks ago and there seemed to be, at least from my point of view,
a sense that there was some freedom of action for commanders in
the south and I am interested in how much freedom of action British
commanders will have in their area of operations after these changes?
Mr Howard: I think I go back to
what General Houghton has said about the new environment we will
be in post 30 June. At one level within MNFI the command position
will be the same but we will be in a different situation where
we will be working in partnership with the Iraqi Authority. Exactly
how that plays out on the ground in practical terms will vary
from location to location. I think the advice that we are receiving
at the moment is that in three out of the four provinces after
30 June it is very likely that the Iraqi Security Authorities
will be very much the visible face of the security forces.
Q10 Mike Gapes: That is three of
the four provinces in the South.
Mr Howard: The precise ones are
Al Basrah, Al-Muthanna and Dhi Qar. The exception, and General
Houghton may want to amplify this, is Maysan which is more difficult
particularly around al-Amarah. Nick, did you want say something?
Major General Houghton: There
are probably three new dynamics post-30 June. One is this concept
of partnership with the Iraqi Sovereign Authority both at the
national level and the local level with the local governor. The
second is, as it were, the different security situation across
Iraq which clearly is not uniform. There are some places that
you might consider to be hot areas. In MND(SE) the hot area would
be Maysan province but in other provinces, to all intents and
purposes, the secure environment can be provided exclusively by
Iraqi security forces, both military and police. Perhaps the third
variable is actually the nature, quality, capability and level
of maturity of those Iraqi security forces. Clearly they are not
uniformly competent across the country and across the various
elements of that security architecture. In some areas they are
relatively well developed, relatively well trained and well equipped
and are able effectively to take the lead in providing local security.
In other areas they will still need on-going mentorship and in
those areas where the quality of Iraqi security forces is still
relatively immature and the nature of the threat is still relatively
hostile, I would envisage that the primary means of delivering
security will still be through the multinational force.
Q11 Mike Gapes: In that context then
would British commanders after the change have freedom to ignore
US orders on military or political grounds?
Mr Howard: I do not think the
relationship between UK commanders and US commanders will change;
in that sense it will remain the same.
Q12 Mike Gapes: That did not answer
my question.
Mr Howard: Yes, I realise that
but what I am saying is that I think the point of your question
was to ask whether the situation was going to be different from
30 June. In that respect I do not think it is.
Q13 Mike Gapes: But would we have
freedom to ignore US orders?
Major General Houghton: I think
that we always have enjoyed that freedom. Every coalition member
within his own national element effectively has a red card over
certain issues, and that red card would still remain. But from
an exclusively UK perspective we have an appropriate level of
command throughout the United States chain of commandwe
have the Deputy Commanding General of the MNFI force, we have
the Deputy Commanding General of the Multinational Corps, and
clearly we command in our own area where the vast majority of
British forces arewe have the ability to influence in a
positive manner the nature of the strategy and the orders that
are being passed down. I think that the requirement at the local
level to have to deploy a red card is unlikely but clearly it
is there as an ultimate safeguard.
Q14 Mike Gapes: It is not just used
in the Iraq context. General Jackson used it in Pristina and it
was very effective.
Major General Houghton: Exactly,
it is a standard feature of a multinational force.
Q15 Mike Gapes: What about not deploying
a red card but taking action without US approval in cases other
than self-defence, if you like the green card?
Major General Houghton: In that
respect clearly doctrinally the UK army works to mission command
and therefore we set the overall context of the mission and allow
that to be interpreted at the local level in the most appropriate
way. Clearly commanders will act in accordance with the rules
of engagement but they do not have to obey slavishly specific
orders. They can interpret the commander's intent and carry out
whatever operations are necessary to deliver on the mission that
they are given. Again I do not see the requirement to obey slavishly
or disobey in that respect. I think the sort of discretion that
for instance the Commander MND(SE) is given is fine.
Q16 Mike Gapes: What about with regard
to training, would we be able to introduce training methods based
on UK practice rather than US practice or will there be an attempt
to try to have a unified all-Iraq system?
Mr Howard: I think the approachand
I do not know all the detailis essentially pragmatic. We
have been responsible for some areas of training, the US have
been responsible for others, and we have tended to use our own
methods but there is nothing laid down about that saying that
there must be British methods.
Major General Houghton: You are
talking about the training of the Iraqi security forces?
Q17 Mike Gapes: Yes we visited a
place
Major General Houghton: Yes, I
think you would be quite right to say probably at the time of
your visit that the nature in which the Iraq security forces were
being equipped, trained and developed did have an element of the
ad hoc about it. It was being driven bottom-up in response
to local circumstances. It was because of this that a number of
people felt that an early statement of a vision by Dr Allawi about
what the medium-term destiny and architecture of the Iraqi security
forces across the piece would be would then enable a standardisation
of development. This is what was captured in Dr Allawi's statement
of last weekend where he set out his vision for the Iraqi security
forces, the police, and the destiny for the ICDC being involved
in this new Iraqi national guard. From this setting out of the
advice, as it were, we are then able to develop many of the policy
issues relating to such things as dress, as pay, as redundancy,
as training standards and these sorts of things, and Dr Allawi
in making that statement also identified the priorities for training
and equipping, particularly within what you might call the high-end
capability of the Iraqi police and the Iraqi civil intervention
force particularly giving that whole range of public order training,
the sorts of things you might have seen on your visit, and within
the Iraqi national intervention force, the first division of the
Iraqi national army, to give that priority for a slightly more
advanced level of counter-terrorist capability
Mike Gapes: I will leave it there and
allow my colleagues to continue.
Q18 Rachel Squire: Continuing to
follow on the current line of questioning, can I ask you to be
as specific as possible as to at what level and by whom policy
and strategic decisions will be made in respect of the British
Armed Forces?
Mr Howard: You mean in Iraq?
Q19 Rachel Squire: Yes?
Mr Howard: Obviously overall security
policy, as General Houghton has explained, will be set by the
Iraqis through their Ministerial Security Committee and, as we
have also said, US, UK and other MNFI forces will be working in
co-operation with the Iraqi authorities. So that is the philosophy
under which we are working. In terms of how command will be exerted
that will be through the normal British chain of command and that
does not change.
Major General Houghton: The chain
of command flows from the Chief of Defence Staff to Chief of Joint
Operations in Northwood and then it goes two ways, one to the
senior British military representative in Iraq, General McColl,
who clearly has distinct responsibilities operating at the highest
levels of the American in-theatre chain of command and on a second
track down to GOC MND(SE), General Andrew Stewart. That is the
British chain of command but clearly British forces within theatre,
although they operate within that UK chain of command also are
operating within a theatre architecture at the top of which henceforth
from 30 June will be the Ministerial Committee of National Security
headed by Dr Allawi as Prime Minister on which will sit senior
ministers within the Iraqi Interim Government and senior commanders
from both within the Iraqi security forces and the multinational
force, hence that unity of command and unity of effort within
theatre.
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