Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
TUESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2004
MR GEOFFREY
HOON MP
Q160 Mr Havard: So the first
body which is the Ministerial Committee for National Security
essentially deals with the high level policy—because I think
there are two questions in a sense. The extent to which the Iraqis
are involved in policy determination and the earlier question
which was being asked which is how are they then involved in the
process of executing that policy and the day-to-day tactics and
methodology used to execute it?
Mr Hoon: They will be thoroughly
and comprehensively briefed as to the nature of the operation
that is being proposed and they will have the decision as to whether
or not that operation should go ahead in that way, in exactly
the same way as I would expect to exercise control over British
forces on operations. I would be briefed as to the detail of the
operation and, having satisfied myself that that was both sensible
in accordance with the law and the appropriate rules of engagement
I would either decide that that operation should go ahead or not.
Q161 Mr Havard: As I understand
it, the Iraqi President in the last couple of days has expressed
a very different opinion from the Iraqi Prime Minister about a
potential attack on Fallujah. In fact, he said he thinks it is
a bad idea; it is the wrong thing to do. So there may be problems
of internal government within the Iraqis but what we want to try
and find out is the extent to which we are committing and you
are committing British personnel to help deploy policy which we
have declared is something that the Iraqis want and that they
are driving, and yet we see these differences. So how can we have
confidence in the process and the structures to see not only that
the policy determination is correct, but the actual execution
of the process is correct, and we are involved in shaping it?
Mr Hoon: I thought you fairly
accurately set out the decision-making structures inside the interim
government. They have their structures for reaching decisions,
and I expect that they will follow them through.
Q162 Mr Havard: So you think
that this structure as described is allowing them to determine
both the security and the policy-making decisions for these military
activities?
Mr Hoon: Right.
Q163 Mr Hancock: So the Iraqi
President, who is Commander in Chief of the Iraqi forces, is against
this attack on Fallujah, so he says, "I do not deploy Iraqi
troops", so where is the Iraqi face then?
Mr Hoon: That is a matter for
the Iraqis.
Q164 Mr Hancock: So the operation
stops?
Mr Hoon: If the Iraqis judge that
this is not an operation they want to see conducted on their soil
it will not take place.
Q165 Mr Havard: But as far as
the British are concerned we are clear it is a particular mission
to carry out a particular set of activities which has this military
rationale that has been described to secure this area for a period
of time. The questions about what is done as a consequence of
us being allowed to alleviate people to participate in something
else is really a matter for this process and the Iraqi—
Mr Hoon: Of course. As you would
expect.
Chairman: Thank you. Mike Gapes?
Q166 Mike Gapes: Chairman, I
think my question has partly been answered already; I will not
focus on the general situation but on the relationship between
our forces as redeployed, the battle group, and the Iraqis in
the area where they have been redeployed to. Are there specific
arrangements in place for co-ordination and, if there are, could
you explain what they are?
Mr Hoon: They are the same arrangements
that exist elsewhere in Iraq. There are obviously Iraqi security
forces, police and others, on the ground, in this area, as there
are obviously in the south east, and there is a regular exchange
of information between the multinational force and the Iraqi security
forces. Indeed, I have seen for myself in the south that very
often the two are operating alongside each other in a very co-operative
way.
Q167 Mike Gapes: And you expect
our people to be working on a regular basis alongside Iraqis?
Mr Hoon: Yes. Increasingly what
we are trying to develop in the south, and I see no reason why
this should not happen in this particular area either, is something
that will be very familiar to the Committee. It is support to
the civilian power allowing Iraqi police and security forces to
be, in effect, the first line of security where they believe they
require greater, for want of a better word firepower, greater
support, than they can deal with on their own, to call in multinational
forces to provide that extra clout that is necessary.
Q168 Mike Gapes: But we are
replacing Americans who have been doing this in the past?
Mr Hoon: Yes.
Q169 Mike Gapes: Will there
be any changes in the way that that relationship with the Iraqis
in that area develops as a result of the fact that our people
in Basra have operated in a slightly different way to the way
the Americans have operated?
Mr Hoon: I think that is a matter
that is really for the commanding officer on the ground to determine.
I think there has been a great deal of unfair stereotyping of
the way in which Americans are said to operate as opposed to the
way in which the British are said to operate, because forces have
to adjust their—the military tend to call it "posture"—according
to the kinds of threats on the ground they face. I think you will
find that there are many American forces in different parts of
Iraq that are able to be more relaxed and to work alongside civilian
populations. Undoubtedly, however, a force commander has to have
first regard for the safety of his troops and if his troops are
coming under regular attack, which when the Americans were in
Fallujah, for example, they were, undoubtedly he has to adopt
a rather more robust response. British forces are no different.
Q170 Mike Gapes: We saw that
as Members of the Committee when we visited our forces in May
in Basra, and clearly in the circumstances there they did have
to change according to the threat they were encountering at the
particular time, but clearly, as the Americans will say to you
and have said to us when we visited the NATO Command for Transformation,
we are very good at these kind of operations and they have things
to learn from us about them.
Mr Hoon: Whether we think it is
a good thing or not we have had a great deal of experience in
places like Northern Ireland conducting precisely these kinds
of operations. There might be many of us who perhaps rather regret
that over 30 odd years British forces have been in that position
but we have learned a great deal from that kind of operation.
Q171 Mike Gapes: Can I ask you
a different question, because I wanted to come in when Mr Viggers
was asking the question earlier. You referred to the problems
of communication and we were talking about what happens with e-mails
and mobile phones and so on. You have no—
Mr Hoon: I did not refer to "problems"
of communications; it was exactly the opposite! The ease of communication.
Q172 Mike Gapes: But one of
the consequences of ease of communication is that we get reports
like the one in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend which
makes allegations about people trying to sell stories to The
Sun newspaper, and also implies that people are sending e-mails
from areas like where The Black Watch are currently deployed.
Do you deprecate the way in which this issue is being handled
by some of our newspapers and the fact that it was undermining
what our people are doing in a very difficult situation?
Mr Hoon: I think there are certainly
examples of stories that do not help either morale or the cohesion
of what is a fighting force potentially facing quite a difficult
enemy, and I think that is a matter for newspaper editors to determine
whether they treat those people in a way that I think should have
regard to the particular circumstances in which they are operating.
Mike Gapes: I will leave it there.
Q173 Mr Hancock: You do not
think troop commanders have a responsibility? It cannot just be
the newspapers' fault, can it?
Mr Hoon: No, I think commanding
officers have also a responsibility but often when commanding
officers try, perfectly reasonably, to express a view as to the
appropriateness or otherwise of communication, I then see headlines
saying that somehow or other they are trying to gag either members
of the Armed Forces or their families, so it is extremely difficult
territory for commanding officers.
Q174 Mr Cran: Secretary of State,
I well remember, as it were, waking up that morning when the decision
or the request was made public, and I have to say to you that
I did say to myself I just cannot believe that the Americans could
not and cannot provide the capability that we are talking about.
Now, in answer to questions by Mike Hancock you gave a perfectly
good answer, it seems to me—it was, as I understand it,
that within theatre we were able to provide the expert capability
that The Black Watch provide, and as a Scotsman I am delighted.
However, what I am rather more interested to know was did you
seek assurances from the Americans that they could not provide
that relatively small amount of forces worldwide? Did they not
have the capability elsewhere that they could have drafted in?
Mr Hoon: Not in the notice period
that would be required, no.
Q175 Mr Cran: Are you sure in
your mind that the Americans do not have that capability that
The Black Watch are doing, and could not have mobilised within
the time? And if you say it was a question of not enough time,
did you actually ask those questions?
Mr Hoon: Yes, I did, and I am
sure that somewhere in the world the United States do have that
capability and they could redeploy that capability to Iraq, but
the truth is that those forces would not have been able to reach
their present location in anything like the time that was required
and given that it was necessary, and it was one of the things
rather overlooked at the time, to have these forces in place,
and the longer they are in place the more secure they will be
as they familiarise themselves with their area and with the operations
that they have to conduct, it simply is not possible to produce
that kind of force in the timeframe required.
Q176 Mr Cran: Again, it seems
to me that is perfectly logical. All I am keen to know is that
these questions were asked and that you did satisfy yourself that
in timeframe terms and a lot of other terms these troops could
not have been brought in by the Americans from elsewhere. I just
want to have a clear answer.
Mr Hoon: They could not have been
brought in by the Americans: they could not have been brought
in by the British either.
Q177 Mr Cran: Another question.
I would just like to know because you are in the middle of all
of this and the rest of us are not. Again it is quite surprising
to me that, clearly, planning has been going on in relation to
Fallujah for some time—it seems to be quite clear that it
has been—and it just seems again to me looking in on the
whole thing a bit strange that the Americans, planning as they
do, expertly as they do, just about as well as we do, were not
able to have the timeframe set in that which would have allowed
them to take in their own troops. Did you ask them why they did
not do that either?
Mr Hoon: I know the kinds of places
in which currently US forces are both deployed and are engaged
on active operations and I can say reasonably confidently because
they are the kinds of places where British forces are also deployed
and on active operations. I recognise, because of the questions
I have answered given the timescales, also I think it is necessary
to bear in mind, that one of the reasons why The Black Watch in
particular were so well suited for the kind of operation that
they are embarked upon is that over the summer they have been
engaged in very similar lines of sometimes really very difficult
operations in places like Al Amarah, and therefore one of the
choices that anyone taking these kind of decisions faces is to
ask what are the right kinds of forces, what sort of experience
do they need. I do not think it would be wholly sensible to bring
in a battle group from a completely different theatre somewhere
else in the world facing very different kinds of problems and
put them down in Iraq. I would be quite concerned about that happening
to British forces and I think we would look very hard at any such
suggestion. In fact, we did look quite hard at such a suggestion
and came to the conclusion that The Black Watch, because of their
experiences over the summer in particular, were much the best
force available.
Q178 Mr Cran: Just one last
question: it is clear, because you have made it clear to the House
of Commons, that the request came military to military. I would
just be interested, and I have not quite got there yet—other
questions have been asked along this line but I personally have
not got there yet—was there a parallel political decision-making
line or not?
Mr Hoon: You mean on the American
side?
Q179 Mr Cran: Between the Americans
and the British.
Mr Hoon: There was no formal political
request that I am aware of. I happened to see my American counterpart
the week before at a NATO meeting; he did not mention it. I think
it probably reflects a very different tradition. I alluded to
it already. The US political system and their constitutional arrangements
tends to devolve more authority and decision-making down the military
chain for longer periods of time because, generally speaking,
there is not the same tradition of parliamentary accountability,
therefore it would not surprise me that I was not approached in
any formal way politically. Interestingly, on our side, as soon
as a request was made it was elevated very quickly to ministerial
level but, again, I am sure you would expect that, given the constitutional
traditions of this country.
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