Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 108)
TUESDAY 20 JUNE 2006
Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP, Lieutenant General Nick Houghton
CBE and Dr Roger Hutton
Q100 One would indeed hope so.
Mr Ingram: We should always look
to see if there is a technical solution, but it then has to be
tested. What we cannot do is just procure it and throw it into
the vehicles and then find that it does not deliver the required
result.
Q101 Linda Gilroy: Perhaps I can
return to the question of IEDs and ask you whether you are in
a position to comment on what use is being made? I actually met
a couple of the young men who were involved in that big raid there
which identified, was it, 25 or 50 IEDs, and I just wondered if
you had an assessment about what developments there are on the
research side which may help to counteract them. ***
Lt Genreal Houghton: *** The majority
of the finds related to this explosively formed projectile, ***
and where these things might have been sourced from, and that,
in many respects, ***
Q102 Linda Gilroy: Are there any
other possible lines of countermeasure being developed that are
not related to that particular find?
Lt General Houghton: *** We are
constantly looking, the research and development community is
constantly looking to get the technical edge ***
Q103 Chairman: I asked if our electronic
countermeasures are better or worse than the Americans', to which
the answer was, ***
Lt General Houghton: ***
Chairman: Then I am relieved to hear
it.
Q104 Mr Holloway: ***
Lt General Houghton: ***
Chairman: I am relieved to hear it.
Q105 Mr Havard: *** What I would
really like to talk about are the bases. The comment was made
to us about hardening bases, and I realise that, if we are going
to change our structure of bases, this becomes a difficult question
as to whether you put in hardened accommodation all the time.
***
Mr Ingram: Well, these things
are kept under genuine and constant review. We are all conscious
of the fact that the last death was bad and terrible for everyone,
but it is the next death we have got to try and avoid. Can we
do so? It is not for lack of willingness to deliver programmes
to achieve all of that, but it is just whether it is realistic,
whether it is going to achieve the end result and whether it is
an investment that is worthwhile. We are not the Americans who
just throw money at everything and we do not have the money to
throw anyway in that sense. Do not misinterpret that because in
terms of UORs, we do get full support in all of this. If we prove
the case, we get the funding route and off we go and deliver on
it, but we do not have an unlimited resource. We cannot do everything
all singing and all dancing, it is just not the world in which
we live and fight in a sense.
Q106 Mr Havard: ***
Mr Ingram: ***
Lt General Houghton: ***
Q107 Mr Havard: We saw that some
of these things may well be taken over by the Iraqi Army, for
example, so there is a relationship in gifting stuff as well in
all of this activity. As far as I was concerned, there was a quite
clear plan laid out as to what might want to be done, and I think
the question for us is the pace at which that transition can take
place. For example, your point about the logistics base, we were
told that there is something like 7,000 containers which have
got to be shifted from there, so the number of transports and
how you can use the port and whether you can use the port in competition
with the United States of America, who would also want to use
Umm Qasr, those sorts of issues are issues that I think we will
be concerned to ask public questions about and we will need to
know from you
Mr Ingram: There are a lot of
the logistics which have to be looked at as to how you do it,
how you face it, over what timescale, whether there are other
competing demands. There is the other issue of course that as
Umm Qasr hopefully becomes an even more commercial port, then
you are competing against commercial demand and use as well. You
did refer to the transfer to the Iraqi Security Force and that
again is something that is looked at. We have to go through a
gifting process and we have to get Treasury approval in terms
of it in terms of any real estate or anything else we are gifting
to them and all of that is being examined at the present time,
so there is a dynamic in the system at the moment and, if we can
give you more detail, we will do that.
Q108 Chairman: Perhaps I can come
back on one answer you gave, Minister, about the comparison with
the Americans having a lot of money to put into hardened shelters
compared to the British. That of course is a comparison which
we have always found very difficult. I think that the comparison
that the British troops make is that Foreign Office officials
seem to have their facilities in hardened shelters, whereas soldiers
tend not to have and that makes them feel just a touch unloved.
Mr Ingram: I am conscious of the
point and it is a serious point that has been made. All of these
things are against a balance of investment decisions and availability
of resource as well. There may be some desire to do something,
but there is a limit to what we can deliver and given all the
other things that we do in UORs and whatever else. Just on civilians
living in hardened facilities, I had a previous member of staff
who went out to work in Baghdad and she was sharing hardened accommodation
with three blokes. At that time there was a lot of mortaring going
on and she went out of the hardened facility and into a tented
facility because of the snoring and whatever else of the three
guys, so she was prepared to take risks. She would have to, she
works for me!
Chairman: On that note, Minister and
gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for your evidence. It was
most helpful indeed.
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