Select Committee on Defence Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140 - 159)

TUESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2004

MR GEOFFREY HOON MP

  Q140    Mr Hancock: So it is 30 days from today, is it, not 30 days from when they left their base last week?

  Mr Hoon: I am confident that they will be back in their base within 30 days.

  Q141    Mr Hancock: If this was simply a request that you would normally get in the exchange between allies in this sort of set-up, and I think it is reasonable to accept that that possibly is the case, and that there were no permanent or significant alterations to the battle plan for the British deployed forces, why then could the commanders in theatre not have agreed this? Why did it necessitate ministers getting involved? You cannot really have it both ways, can you?

  Mr Hoon: But then neither than the Committee because I anticipate, if it had been left to commanders on the ground to resolve this, this Committee and Parliament would have made some perfectly legitimate constitutional complaints about the importance of Parliament being informed over significant deployments of British troops.

  Q142    Mr Hancock: So this was part of a regular pattern of exchanges that the Americans said, "What reserves have you available? Can you spare us a battle group?" So did you at the same time assess what reserves they had available and what their capabilities were? Considering the size of the troop deployment they had, are you seriously saying that of 130,000 deployed troops, they did not have 100 troops available?

  Mr Hoon: I think the Americans have probably got rather more than 130,000 but I accepted entirely that the nature of the operations that they are contemplating requires a particular kind of force; that force we are replacing with The Black Watch; and I accept entirely that it is necessary to replace like-with-like, and that not all of those 138,000 soldiers that the Americans have deployed are of that kind of capability, so it is not entirely accurate to talk about 138,000. This is a particular armoured capability and there are nothing like that number of American troops with that capability on the ground.

  Q143    Mr Hancock: Less than 1 per cent of the deployed forces were capable of doing this job, as far as the Americans are concerned?

  Mr Hoon: Again, I do not recognise that statistic.

  Q144    Mr Hancock: Well, 138,000. They needed 800. It is less than 1 per cent of the deployed force.

  Mr Hoon: I do not think that is a terribly accurate way of describing it either.

  Q145    Mr Hancock: They are your figures.

  Mr Hoon: If you will allow me to answer the question, the Americans require particular capabilities to conduct some quite difficult offensive operations in places like Fallujah. Not surprisingly they require armoured capability to achieve those operations successfully. Now, they have more than a single battle group of armoured capability but that will be deployed either to existing operation or for the operations that are in prospect, therefore I accept that they do not have spare capacity both to conduct those operations and to cover the area that The Black Watch are now in a position to cover.

  Q146    Mr Hancock: In that case then, Secretary of State, what sort of decision can senior commanders take on the ground in Iraq about the deployment, with negotiation with their allies, for troops to be deployed around the country? Where do you step in and where can they make a decision? What is the size of our roulement?

  Mr Hoon: Obviously there is a constant process of discussion. I am accountable to Parliament for the decisions that are taken at every level in the Ministry of Defence, and therefore certainly I would expect to be informed of any significant deployment. I think there is a difference between the United Kingdom and many other countries as far as troop deployment is concerned. There is a very strong constitutional tradition in this country that these matters are important to Parliament, and that inevitably means that ministers do take a close interest in these questions. I would say as a matter of routine British forces report more to the Ministry of Defence about what perhaps in other countries would be considered to be relatively minor changes and adjustments simply because ministers are regularly accountable to Parliament in a way that does not happen in most other countries.

  Q147    Mr Hancock: I agree with that, and on 18 October you told the House in a statement that other British land forces had previously been deployed and operated outside that area, but we had not been told of it until you mentioned it in your statement, and then you did not clarify it. Would you care to do that today?

  Mr Hoon: British forces were engaged outside MND(SE) on border operations for a short period of time conducting basically operations to try and assist the Iraqis in securing that border.

  Q148    Mr Hancock: And that is the only other occasion, is it?

  Mr Hoon: Well, there are other occasions I do not wish to go into.

  Q149    Mr Hancock: Yes, but they were always taken on the ground by commanders there and not by ministers there, who felt they had to tell Parliament about that?

  Mr Hoon: I think I was told of those operations.

  Q150    Mr Hancock: You "think" you were told, or you were told?

  Mr Hoon: I was told, yes.

  Mr Hancock: Thank you, Chairman.

  Q151    Mr Havard: We have a situation, then, where the British troops are undertaking the mission you described, which is presumably in order to allow something else to happen elsewhere. One of the "something elses" that is going to happen is presumably a "successful" assault in Fallujah, gain stability there, the end-state presumably is to see that happen, secure the land environment and help that whole process towards the elections process in January. That seems to be the declared aim certainly of the Americans in terms of the overall mission, if you like, of all the particular missions which, when they all come together, will be established. Is that right?

  Mr Hoon: Certainly Fallujah is one of the places where it will be necessary to conduct operations to deal with the very significant terrorist threat that is based there.

  Q152    Mr Havard: I really want to come on to this question about the role of the Iraqis in all this as well, which is why we were asking about what the British role is in terms of shaping the whole exercise and what is the role of the Iraqis in this. Now, there is an arrangement, as I understand it, of the Ministerial Committee for National Security under which there is then the Security Action Committee, and then below that there are some Joint Co-ordination Committees that can operate at both provincial town and municipal level. All of these are methods by which people are involved, as I understand it, in mission selection and in deciding the policy. Is that roughly the correct description of where we are?

  Mr Hoon: The decision as to whether any operation will be conducted in and around Fallujah or elsewhere will be a decision for the interim Iraqi government.

  Q153    Mr Havard: What is behind my question, as you will know, is the concern less about what the Brits will do and what might happen as a consequence of broader activities. The collateral damage that maybe comes about because of an attack in Fallujah; 60,000 people or whatever it is are still in the town and so on; so what is the Iraqis' view of it? Was this put to this Ministerial Committee of National Security? Were they involved in that, and if so when?

  Mr Hoon: I have emphasised to you that these decisions will be taken by the Iraqis. They will be taken after a political process inside Iraq whereby the information will be provided to that particular Committee and they will reach a view as to whether it is appropriate. I am confident that, for example, one of the steps that they will need to take is to warn the population of Fallujah, or wherever operations are conducted. There is no doubt, as I think I have mentioned to Parliament before, that there is growing evidence that the ordinary people of Fallujah are sick and tired of having foreign fighters who are intimidating them, threatening them and on occasions killing them, who are using their city as a base for launching terrorist operations largely against Iraqis. The combination of military action and a political process, I hope, as we have seen in places like Samarra, and as we saw in Najaf, will produce a situation where there are elections in Iraq crucially where cities like Fallujah are once again answerable to the government of Iraq, and that is a perfectly legitimate ambition for the government of Iraq to pursue, but it will be they who will be pursuing it.

  Mr Havard: I have a couple more questions but my colleague on my right is itching to ask you something.

  Q154    Mr Jones: Secretary of State, you said that the decision, for example, on operations in Fallujah is down to the Iraqi government. What is their role once those operations have started? What is their involvement, for example, in calling a halt to action, or in the day-to-day running?

  Mr Hoon: It is their country. They will have complete authority and, indeed, responsibility for those operations. They will be briefed in the way that I have been briefed: they will expect to receive thorough detail as to what is happening and, of course, if they decide that the operation should stop at any stage, that is a matter for them. If they decide it should stop, it will stop.

  Q155    Mr Jones: But the bulk of the people involved in, for example, the assault at Fallujah are not Iraqi National Army but other forces, they are foreign forces in terms of the US and other elements of external—

  Mr Hoon: I think you must just be careful about your premise. I do not think either of us are in a position to say what that force composition will be. There will be a very significant representation of Iraqi Security Forces. The precise proportion has not been decided.

  Q156    Mr Jones: How does it work then? For example, if they have control over, for example, the Iraqi forces there, which I assume from what you are saying is correct, are you saying that they have a veto or they will stop, for example, or overrule what a US commander on the ground would want to do?

  Mr Hoon: The final decision as to whether this operation will be conducted, how it will be conducted, and the nature of the operations involved is a matter for the Iraqis and it is a matter for the Committee, as I referred to earlier.

  Q157    Mr Jones: So they can call a halt at any stage?

  Mr Hoon: Of course.

  Q158    Mr Havard: My understanding of it is that the local American commander who is organising the attack on Fallujah has said that the attack will have an Iraqi face, that there will be Iraqi troops within it in order to give it that but obviously the predominant people involved in it are going to be American forces.

  Mr Hoon: Sorry, I just dealt with the premise. I do not think you can say at this stage who will be the predominant force. There will be a very significant Iraqi participation in these operations.

  Q159    Mr Havard: As far as I understand it, as far as the Security Action Committee is concerned, we have been told that there is British involvement some way and another through multinational force, presumably through the Americans?

  Mr Hoon: A British general is second in command of the multinational force.


 
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