UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be
published as HC 727-ii
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
DEFENCE COMMITTEE
UK OPERATIONS IN IRAQ
Tuesday 24 July 2007
RT HON BOB AINSWORTH
MP, MR DESMOND BOWEN CMG
and BRIGADIER
CHRIS HUGHES CBE
Evidence heard in Public Questions 80 -
184
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Defence Committee
on Tuesday 24 July 2007
Members present
Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair
Mr David S Borrow
Mr David Crausby
Linda Gilroy
Mr Dai Havard
Mr Adam Holloway
Mr Bernard Jenkin
Mr Brian Jenkins
Mr Kevan Jones
Robert Key
Willie Rennie
________________
Witnesses: Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP, Minister of
State for the Armed Forces, Mr Desmond
Bowen CMG, Policy Director, and Brigadier
Chris Hughes CBE, Director of Joint Commitments (Military), Ministry of
Defence, gave evidence.
Q80 Chairman: Welcome to this evidence session on Iraq and,
Minister, without meaning to say anything about your team, may I say you are
particularly welcome at your first session before this Committee. We are conscious that you are newly in post,
but we are also conscious of the fact that you have just returned from
Iraq. We were in Iraq a couple of weeks
ago, as you know, and some of the people we met were in the RAF Regiment which
has just suffered those casualties in Basra and, I must say, we were deeply
impressed with the courage of what the RAF Regiment were doing and of the sorts
of trials that they are all going through in Basra at the moment. The casualties have risen and you will have
been there last week, although I do not know whether you were there when they
were actually killed, but thank you very much indeed for coming in front of our
Committee. May I ask you to begin by
introducing your team, please.
Mr Ainsworth: Chairman, thank you for your welcome. As you say, I have been in post for less
than a month, but I have managed to get out to both Afghanistan and Iraq in the
last week. With me, I have Desmond
Bowen, who is our Policy Director, and Brigadier Chris Hughes, who is the
Military Director of Joint Commitments.
Chris not only holds that position, but, prior to that, in 2005 he was
Operation Commander out in Basra, so he brings a knowledge probably far deeper
than yours or mine. Recognising the
fact that I am pretty new into the job, we will try to act as a team in order
to try to give you the maximum amount of information that we can. In coming up to speed, I am trying as fast
as I can, but I do not want my coming up to speed to hinder your ability to get
the information that you need to get out of the Department in order to conduct
the inquiry. Your comments about the
people out there, I was on my way into the COB at the time that the attack took
place, so my arrival was actually delayed by what happened and, as I say, I was
just enormously impressed not only with the bravery of the troops there, but
the competence, the skill and the ability that is required at every level of
the operation by our forces out in Iraq is tremendously impressive.
Q81 Chairman: Can I begin this evidence session by asking
what your general assessment is of the security and political situation in Iraq
as a whole. Do you think things have
got better or worse and what do you think the prospects are overall for Iraq as
a whole? We will come down to the
southern part later.
Mr Ainsworth: I did not manage to get up to Baghdad. We laid the trip on at fairly short notice,
so that was not possible as people's diary commitments had taken them off, so I
would not try to pretend to the Committee that my knowledge and assessment of
the overall situation would be as good as it is about the circumstances in the
south-east area where we have direct responsibility. We are in the middle of the American operation, the Surge, and
that has had success in some areas, but it is far too early to say the degree
to which that has been successful and obviously there is the big report coming
up in September.
Q82 Chairman: We will come back to the Surge itself in due
course and we will ask some more detailed questions.
Mr Ainsworth: I would say that the nature of the problem in
different parts of the country is very different, as the Committee will know
better than I. We have got the
sectarian problems in the Baghdad area in the centre of the country dominating
the situation and the need for the Iraqi Government to reach out to the Sunni
community is overwhelming in terms of the necessity in that area. In our area of responsibility, the nature of
the problem is completely different where religion is not part of the problem,
potentially it is a force for unity in our own area, but we are dealing with a
different set of problems and a different set of priorities in the
south-east.
Q83 Chairman: If we can move on to the south-eastern area,
how would you assess the security and political situation in the south-eastern
area, particularly in the Basra province?
Mr Ainsworth: I think the recent appointment of General
Mohan to command the Armed Forces in the south-east and General Jalil to
command the police forces in the area is very important and a good sign of
potential. Those people, having been
appointed, now need to be backed up.
Progress with regards to army capability and army capacity is a lot more
reassuring than it is in the area of the police. The police have got a lot more work to do as the problems are far
deeper and more difficult to deal with, but Mohan has made a very good start,
as has General Jalil. The capacity of
the Iraqi 10th Division is coming along, it is being built all the
time, and it will be absolutely vital that that continues if we are going to be
able to achieve provincial Iraqi control in Basra, as we have in the other
three areas. Meanwhile, the position
that we find ourselves in is difficult, as the Committee knows. We are the people who are effectively
providing the backbone of stability and, therefore, those people in the area,
no matter what their motivations are, and there are so many different
motivations of different people in the Basra region through to people who have
very close associations with forces outside the country, there are the
patriotic kind of youth who are targeting our forces, but there is also a huge,
criminal element who are effectively intent on pillaging their own country, people
should not underestimate the degree to which that motivates some of the forces
in the south-east area. Those people
know that we are the ultimate guarantor of any chance of progress and,
therefore, it is not surprising, although it is enormously difficult, that we
are the people who are being targeted overwhelmingly by those individuals
concerned. That puts us in some
difficulty. Convoys into the Basra
Palace are very difficult to secure and the attacks on Basra Palace are
regular, as are attacks out on to the COB itself. Our presence there though not only is a necessity in terms of the
capacity-building, the training that is going on in the area, but it also is
our ability to project force into the wider province which, until the
assessment is done that the Iraqi security services are able to take over, is a
necessity which will remain.
Q84 Chairman: You used one phrase which I wonder if you
could explain, please. You said
"patriotic youth". Are there Iraqi
patriots there attacking our forces, were you suggesting?
Mr Ainsworth: I think that there are young people in the
Basra area who are being used. Their
motivation is not necessarily the motivation of those people who are putting
them on the streets and who are using them in order to attack. There are serious organised militias who
have, as I have said, different motivations and some of them are closely
aligned with forces in Iran and some of them have a clear, nationalist
commitment to Iraq itself, but nonetheless, want to attack us and some of them
are looking after their corrupt individual self-interest, and I do not think we
should downplay that, but not everybody is of that mind. There are lots of innocent people who are
being used by those organisations who have not necessarily got that motivation
at all.
Q85 Mr Jones: Can I just pick up a couple of points you
have made. You used the words "ultimate
guarantor", "projector of force" and "we are the backbone of stability". When we visited a few weeks ago, it was my
fifth visit to Iraq and my fifth visit to Basra and my first visit was in July
2003 when we quite clearly had a footprint in the city of Basra where we had
people on the ground, you could walk around, you had civic teams doing
reconstruction and things like that. Is
it not the case that what we have now basically is a force surrounded, I think,
a little bit like cowboys and Indians, at Basra Palace with the reinforcements,
you could say, at the COB at the airport?
The idea that we are projecting force or stability is just not the
case. We are going in on basically
nightly suicide missions on occasions to go in to relieve the palace and, once
we withdraw from the palace, the city itself, there will be very little need
for us to go in and, if we did, it would be extremely dangerous, so are we
actually a stability force or a projector of power anymore or are we actually
just really leading Basra itself to what it is, controlled by various factions,
as you have described?
Mr Ainsworth: As we get nearer the point where people begin
to appreciate that there is the prospect of the Government of Iraq having the
ability to control the situation itself, then those people who do not want that
to happen ----
Q86 Mr Jones: No, but we are not doing it like that.
Mr Ainsworth: Those people who have a vested interest in
ensuring that it cannot happen obviously become pretty focused on what they
have to do in order to try to prevent that from coming about.
Mr Jones: But we are not doing that. What we are doing basically, there are two
or three lines or routes into Basra Palace and we were told quite clearly by
the people who were going in that night when we were there a few weeks ago ----
Mr Jenkin: That is confidential.
Q87 Mr Jones: Shut up, Bernard, stop being prissy! Those lines or routes into the town were
being attacked not occasionally, but on a nightly basis going in.
Mr Ainsworth: We have to check convoys into the palace and
there are not that many routes by which those convoys, and they are supply
convoys, as you know, because you have been out there more often than I have,
so you have probably got a far better understanding of this than me, but those
convoys are substantial and there are only a very few routes that can be taken
in there, so that is a massive operation to try to provide force protection and
to keep people alive while we manage to reinforce the palace. Now, I am not trying to say that that is not
a difficult issue, but it is not true to say that our presence either in the
palace or in the COB does not provide the last guarantee of power in the region
and the 10th Division is not ready, although it may be approaching
that point, to assume those responsibilities itself. Now, we are getting there and the capacity of the 10th
Division is coming up all the time, they are training 5th Brigade
now, they are beginning to be brought up to strength now, but, for the time
being, the ultimate guarantor or the biggest boys on the block effectively are
us and our presence there is felt and it is felt where we need it to be
felt. We are able, although it is very
difficult, to take forces into the city itself and that happens on a regular
basis, and we are able to deploy out into the areas around the city, so it is
not true to say that our presence there is not a projective force in the area
to a considerable degree.
Mr Jones: Well, I would disagree with you on that.
Chairman: I will come back to these issues because they
are very important.
Q88 Robert Key: Minister, I would like to take a step back
and look at the politics of this because a lot of people in this country are
now asking, "Why are we still there and what are we trying to achieve?" The Iraq Commission, in their recent report,
concluded, "The initial, over-ambitious vision of the Coalition can no longer
be achieved in Iraq", and, "The UK Government needs...to redefine its
objectives". How do you respond to
that?
Mr Ainsworth: Well, for some long time now we have
concentrated on the need for security and stability and those have been a large
part of our objectives. When you say,
"Why are we still there?", we are there in lower numbers than we were some
short while ago and we have managed to hand over control of three of the four
provinces that we originally had direct responsibility for to the Iraqi forces
themselves. Basra is more difficult and
it is more difficult than those three provinces; there is no doubt about
that. We are there in order to achieve
the conditions where they are able to take over the job that we are currently
doing. Now, there is hope among our
people out there at every level that we are approaching the situation where
that can be done, but we have got to look at the conditions that apply on the
ground, their capacity, and we have got to talk to our allies and to the Iraqi
Government about that. That cannot be a
unilateral decision on our part; it has got to be a proper assessment of the
conditions and the capability of the people we are handing over to as well.
Q89 Robert Key: How do we make that assessment then? How do we measure our success?
Mr Ainsworth: It has to be to a degree subjective, but it
has to be done in consultation with Iraqi commanders and there is growing
confidence on their part. I even met
General Habib who appears to be a fairly competent commander of 10th
Division and he is getting to the point where certainly he thinks that his
forces are able to take over in Basra city in the near future, and that is
where he is, so that conversation is ongoing.
Are we able to hand over in the city, are they up to taking over not
only the facilities that we have got, but doing the job that we are doing as
well and then are they able to take over in the wider Basra province? That conversation is taking place.
Q90 Robert Key: The Iraq Commission said that the "handover
should not be dependent on the prevailing security situation". Do you agree with that?
Mr Ainsworth: No, I do not think I do agree with that. I think that the security position cannot be
the whole picture, but it is a vital part of the assessment of whether or not
we are able to hand over. We cannot
hand over to a vacuum or to the forces that are going to destroy Iraqi
Government control and want to destroy Iraqi Government control in the
south-east of the country and, if we do not want to do that, then security is
absolutely key and the capacity of the people we are handing over to is
absolutely key to the timetable for handing over control of the province.
Q91 Robert Key: So we will not be driven out by a difficult
security situation, but our objective will be to leave in an orderly manner
when the Iraqi forces can look after themselves and their Government and
people? Is that a fair assessment?
Mr Ainsworth: Build the capacity, assess the situation and check
the confidence of the people we are handing over to, and that is not to say
that there are not going to be problems the other side of the handover; there
are problems now. Iraq is not a benign
environment, and those provinces that we have handed over have not been
trouble-free and there have been problems in those provinces, but the important
point is that, when those problems occurred, the Iraqis dealt with it
themselves. They dealt with it
themselves, they controlled the situation and they coped with the
problems. Now, that has got to be what
we have got to try and achieve in Basra.
Q92 Mr Jones: Can I return to the military and ask quite a
simple question to start off with and a few follow-ups. What is the current military role for UK
Forces in Basra?
Mr Ainsworth: I think we have talked about it already,
although you disagree with me about what the effect of that is. The role is to liaise, to train and to build
capacity in the Iraqi Forces themselves and to exercise some projection of
force out into the wider area in order to allow that capacity to develop. I do believe that, if we hand over
prematurely, then that will be a major problem. Now, that is not to say that we might not be approaching the
point when we are able to do that, and there are lots of people out there who
hope we are getting close to the point where the Iraqis would be able to take
responsibility for the province and, as I say, those conversations, those
discussions are taking place.
Q93 Mr Jones: One of the things that we were told by
numerous people in the military while we were there is that 90 per cent of the
actual violence and attacks are actually against Coalition Forces. Now, it chimes obviously with General
Dannatt's position, and I will come on to him in a minute, but this is a quote
from The Daily Telegraph which seems
to be the way that he now influences public policy by leaking things to The Daily Telegraph rather than talking
to ministers or this Committee and it says, "The plain-speaking
officer...suggested that the British presence in Iraq was 'exacerbating the
security problems' and warned that the Army would 'break' if it was kept there
too long". What is your reaction to
that?
Mr Ainsworth: If you are intent on mayhem and chaos, no
matter what your motives are, whether they are political or whether they are
corrupt self-interest ----
Q94 Mr Jones: We are talking about General Dannatt now, are
we!
Mr Ainsworth: I am talking about those individuals who are
attacking our forces all the time. Then
yes, it is right to a degree, and nobody denies this, that it is a useful tool
to be able to focus on the fact that there are foreign forces in the area in
order to be able to mobilise people who would not necessarily share your aims
and objectives, so it is not surprising that people can be motivated to attack
us, but those are the motivations.
Mr Jones: But the concern which I have and I think some
others on this Committee have is that when you have a senior general, like
General Dannatt, making statements like that, and it annoys me intensely
because, whenever we have any senior military general before this Committee and
we ask about overstretch, we are told that everything is all right and it is no
problem, but it does concern me as to who is actually in control now. If we have a general who is leaking stuff to
the newspapers left, right and centre, trying clearly to influence whatever
agenda it is, is there a big fissure opening up between the politicians and the
MoD and General Dannatt because, if that is the case, then I think that is very
serious?
Chairman: It is not established that it is General
Dannatt who leaked it and you may wish to comment on that as well.
Q95 Mr Jones: It is very strange mail they seem to get
regularly at The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Ainsworth: I do not think it is any secret, with the
amount of people that we have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there are
not huge reserves around for contingencies and other things that might apply,
and that is basically the information that was put into the public domain. There is not anything new in it. Now, we cannot control how the media choose
to report on something that has been known for some long time. We have got two battle groups that are
deployable effectively in unforeseen circumstances at the moment and no more
than that because of the amount of commitment that we have got in these two ongoing,
as termed within the Department, "medium-sized commitments", and that is a very
large commitment. Now, the reporting of
defence matters often gets tweaked and gets taken in all kinds of different
directions. There were internal
documents that basically said what everybody has known for some time that were,
it seems, leaked to a newspaper and they chose to put it on the front page, but
when I read it, I was wondering where the news was, where the actual news was
in the story.
Q96 Mr Jones: Actually,
I have to say, I sympathise with General Dannatt's position, although I
disagree possibly with his methods of actually trying to change the policy
direction, but it was put to us in Iraq and, I have to say, it is something I
am actually now coming to myself, that the real military objectives for us in
Basra have actually finished and that actually the process which is going to
ultimately bring security there is going to be a political one and the fact
that the only reason why we are actually not withdrawing more quickly is
because relations with the United States are actually influencing that. Now, that, I think, is going to create
problems not just politically, but I think also militarily because quite
clearly, talking to people on the ground and the dedication which the Chairman
and you have already alluded to, if the military reason for them being there is
no longer there, you can understand them getting pretty cheesed off pretty
quickly. The concern I have is that, if
we are going to just pull back to the COB and sit there, we are going to get
unfortunately more tragedies like we had last weekend. Now, is that a price worth paying for
keeping US-UK relations on some type of civilised basis or for saving face?
Mr Ainsworth: We are part of a coalition in Iraq and we
were voluntarily part of the Coalition in Iraq and consultting with our allies
about what we do, when we do it and how we do it is an important part of being
part of the Coalition, indeed it is absolutely essential to being part of the
Coalition and, if there are people who are suggesting that we ought not to do
that, then the ramifications of that are pretty profound, but what you are
saying about Basra is true. It is the
politics and the economics that are important, but our presence there has until
now been needed in order to make those things happen. Now, the very fact that we have been able to point up to the
Iraqis that we are serious about handing over to them and the fact that we have
handed over to them in three of those four provinces has concentrated the mind. The appointment of General Mohan and the
appointment of General Jalil is a response from the Iraqis, I think, to the
recognition that their getting a grip of their security arrangements in Basra
is increasingly important and that we are not prepared to hold on for ever
while they get to a position some time whenever, so there is a concentration of
the mind, yes, but the advance that needs to be made is in the political and
the economic area.
Q97 Mr Jones: But the fact that Mohan is not actually
getting control of the security situation and is actually doing deals with the
actual militia in the city, and I am not criticising him for that, that is a
political thing rather than a security or military solution to it?
Mr Ainsworth: Well, in any insurgency situation, you try to
do an assessment of who the enemy is, what their motivation is, who is winnable
and who is irreconcilable and, if you have any sense, you try to split them up
and you do not leave them as a consolidated front against you. If General Mohan is doing that, then all
strength to his elbow; that is the job that we want him to do.
Q98 Willie Rennie: I have a slightly different view from yourself of when we visited
Iraq. I came away with the firm belief
that, with 90 per cent of the attacks on our forces and, if we withdrew, then
the violence which would result would be self-limiting over a relatively short
period, we are now part of the problem and not part of the solution. Now, whichever way you look at it, whether you
believe that our effort in the south has been a success or whether you think it
has been a failure, I think you would come to the same conclusion that our
broader withdrawal is something that is quite urgent and would actually resolve
for the longer term some of the problems in the south because, as you have
recognised, the south is quite different from other parts of the country. Finally, when we met the Prime Minister, we
asked him the question, "What would be the effect of our withdrawal from the
south?", and I am summarising here, but he said that they could cope with the
withdrawal.
Mr Ainsworth: I agree with what you are saying, that the
violence in the south appears to be self-limiting. We do not see the suicide bombers and we do not see the degree of
irreconcilability to the institutions themselves of the Iraqi State that we do
in some other parts of the country.
There are other influences in Basra that are not conducive to
nation-building, but a lot of the people, and some of them are attacking us,
their fundamental aim is to make Iraq a successful country and, therefore,
there is potential there that is not in other parts of the area. As to how quickly we can get out, I can only
say what I have already said and that is that it has got to be based on the
conditions and it has got to be based on the capability of the people we are
taking over from, but that debate is taking place now.
Q99 Mr Havard: This question about the self-limiting
violence should we withdraw and so on, it is more nationalistic in the south
and it is nihilistic in the middle, as one way of describing it, around Baghdad
and, therefore, these political possibilities are there, but the question I
want to go back to is about this statement attributed to General Dannatt, and I
do not know whether he has leaked anything to anybody, but it is in the paper
and I want to know what the effects are because, it seems to me, there is a
series of phases. As you rightly say,
if we withdraw from the town, we are back in the base, but that is not the end
of the story and there are a number of other phases that have to go in the
story and the same with the US, but let us be clear. The quote that was given before, he is said to have said that our
presence in Iraq "was exacerbating the security problems" and he warned that
the Army would "break" if we were there too long. Now, that is not the Iraqi Army, that is the British Army which
would break if we were there too long, so the question of timing of all of these
developments is crucial. Now, he is also
reported as saying that he wants extra infantry units. Now, if Iraq is, and it rightly is,
stimulating a whole discussion about our formation of forces and how many
commitments we can take on, et cetera, et cetera, can we actually have a
proper, structured discussion about that rather than it coming out in the
newspaper on the basis that it is currently doing because I think, from talking
to the personnel on the ground there, that they know that? They know that their military utility is
running out and they say, "We are the wrong tool for the job. We do not contest that the job needs to be
done, but we are not the best people to do it", so, if it is not them, who is
it and how do we have that debate?
Mr Ainsworth: The 'who is it' is the Iraqis themselves. Everybody recognises that.
Q100 Mr Havard: But we are talking about the British Army
"breaking" if we do not do something here.
That is what the general said and that is what I want to contest. I think some of this is hyperbole in all of
this, but nevertheless, we need to have a proper assessment. That is what being said by the top military
commander, that our Army is about to "break", and that has elevated this
discussion to a slightly different level.
Mr Ainsworth: There are a number of things that you have
said. The 'who is it' is the Iraqis, as
we have all acknowledged and I not think we disagree with. If we get out of Basra Palace and get back
to the COB, then the nature of the problem that we will face will change. Now, whether or not it will get worse is a
matter of opinion. There are things,
and I will ask the Brigadier to come in in a minute and fill out what his views
are on that, but some of the things we currently have to do we will no longer
have to do, like the convoys into the palace, so there will be less of a job
and less danger in that regard. Some of
the weaponry that is being used against the palace is not usable against the
COB because of sheer distances and you cannot lob short-term mortars into the
COB without coming out in a built-up area and these people use their own people
as shelters, so they do their dirty business from among the populated areas,
but there is no doubt that some of the capacity that is currently being used
against the palace will potentially be usable against the COB.
Q101 Mr Havard: But then we have got 5,000 personnel in the
COB, stuck there, doing what for how long?
Mr Ainsworth: On this issue that you raise about whether or
not the Army will "break", and you have been out to Iraq recently yourself, I
was out last week and nobody in theatre said that to me.
Q102 Mr Havard: No, exactly ----
Mr Ainsworth: They are enormously ----
Q103 Mr Havard: ---- but they did to The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Ainsworth: They are enormously taxed about the way
ahead, they are enormously taxed about improving force protection, but nobody
has used those kinds of words to me and I do not believe they used them to you
either. I do not know whether the
Brigadier wants to say anything in terms of these issues of how we protect
ourselves in the COB, if we get out of Basra Palace.
Brigadier Hughes: If I may pick up on a couple of points, I
think the discussion well illustrates that we are at the most difficult time,
that any military transition, as transition is in other wars, is hugely complex
and it has been getting more difficult as we get closer to transition. Does that mean we are part of the problem
and not part of the solution? I do not
think so, not for the people who matter, that is to say, the Government of
Iraq.
Q104 Mr Havard: That is not what General Dannatt says.
Brigadier Hughes: We are part of the problem as far as quite a
lot of Shia militant fighters are concerned in south-east Iraq, in Basra. We are absolutely part of the solution as
far as the Government of Iraq is concerned.
If we are to make sure in the very difficult, dangerous fight for wealth
and power that is going on in Basra that the Government of Iraq is actually
going to have to have a say, then we still play a significant part in backing
that up as guarantors, as the Minister said.
As to the issue of whether, when we come out of Basra Palace, things are
going to get much worse in the COB and the fact that 85/90 per cent of the
attacks against us are against us and, therefore, if we were not there, would
not be happening, it is hugely difficult to ascertain that. People have got it wrong on a number of
occasions in the last couple of years by trying to forecast where we are going
to be within a set time limit, in six months or 12 months, which is why we have
consistently given this message about it being condition-based. We have an idea of what we think will happen
when Basra Palace is handed back. We
have an idea of what we think, and plans for what we think, will happen when we
get provincial Iraqi control in Basra, but we cannot be certain about that
because there are so many shifting dynamics that we need to be alive to the
fact that we keep with the conditions and, when the conditions allow, we are
then able to make another move, and that is why it has been so difficult, nay
impossible, to put a time-frame on it.
Q105 Mr Jenkin: Would you describe victory in this rather
unsatisfactory situation as the handing over of security and political control
in Basra province to forces which are answerable to the Iraqi Government which
can control the situation in Basra, if not necessarily create Hampstead Garden
Suburb, and the orderly withdrawal of the British and Coalition Forces from
southern Iraq? Would that constitute
victory in the circumstances?
Brigadier Hughes: I think it has been quite a long time since
anybody has talked about victory in Iraq and I certainly would not try and
define victory in Iraq; I think it is the wrong word. I think we can try and define success and that is in line with
the strategy that we are following at the moment. It is about making sure that the people, through the national
Government and the provincial Government, have a say about how they run their
lives in Basra and elsewhere and can, through that share of the national and
provincial governments, lead a reasonable life. It is about making sure that the criminal elements that the
Minister has talked about, the militant on militant and the various political
parties down there do not grab the cake and cut it amongst themselves and leave
out the Government and the people of Basra, and it is about us coming away in
good order. Those are the sorts of
definitions that we would see laid out for success rather than victory, Mr
Jenkin.
Q106 Mr Jenkin: So we can safely assume that success is achievable,
otherwise you would not be sitting here and that would not be the military
advice that the Minister would be accepting, and we can safely assume that we
believe that to be achievable?
Mr Ainsworth: Success is achievable in those terms.
Q107 Mr Jenkin: In those very limited terms.
Mr Ainsworth: Hampstead Garden Suburb, as you said, it will
be a long, long time before we get to that.
Q108 Mr Jenkin: Therefore, a timetable for precipitate
withdrawal would threaten that success?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes.
Q109 Mr Jenkin: And we need to understand that?
Mr Ainsworth: Yes.
Mr Jones: Can I just come back, Brigadier, to what you
have just said and just reiterate what General Dannatt said, that we are
"exacerbating the security problems" and he warned that the Army would "break"
if we kept it there too long. Now, I
have to say, it is a position I sympathise with and, although I perhaps do not
approve of his methods of getting a message across through the newspapers, this
is clearly a big division between the official line that is coming out of the
MoD that somehow we are not the problem and, I have to say, when we were in
Iraq, it is a position which is actually shared by some senior people on the
ground in Basra, that we are becoming the problem. If you have got a senior military figure saying that, if we stay
there too long, the Army is going to "break", that is a very serious
position. Now, you are saying that we
are not part of the problem, so clearly there is a division there, but someone
is either wrong or there is this huge division between the MoD and General
Dannatt. Now, both cannot be right and,
if we have got that huge chasm which is clearly there and, I have to say, I do
concur more with General Dannatt's position on this than I do the MoD's
position, but someone has got to get some reality into this because, if we do
not, we are going to have a situation whereby not only are we going to continue
being the problem, but we are actually going to lose more people there and, if
the general is right, it is going to have tremendous effects on the ability of,
and morale in, the Army. Therefore,
someone has got to be honest and say that General Dannatt is right or actually
sack him.
Q110 Chairman: It may be better for the Minister to answer
that question.
Mr Ainsworth: We are not planning to keep the levels of
force in south-east Iraq that we have got currently there over the long
term. We are actively in the process of
handing over to the Iraqis. We have
handed over three provinces and we are now in discussions on the fourth
province. We are going to be able to
take down numbers to some degree if we achieve that fourth province handover
and we go to over-watch in the fourth province, but we are still going to have
to, for a period of time, and I am not prepared to define the period of time,
keep sufficient people there to be able to provide that ultimate back-up and to
protect themselves, but we are not planning to stay in the numbers that we are
currently in south-east Iraq over the long period. What the Committee thinks General Dannatt has done or has not
done, and I am not dead sure we are not conflating two stories here, and there
have been recently some comments that were attributed to him from, how long
ago, a year ago or something like that and maybe the Committee needs to talk to
General Dannatt about it ----
Mr Jones: Minister, let us be clear. What I would say to you is they may think,
"We may need just to keep it going for a bit longer then and the Brits are
going to break and they will off", and this does not play very well actually in
that theatre when you are trying to do a job.
Frankly, this is the sort of thing that plays into the hands of the
opposition rather than helping you do a constructive job on the ground. That is my concern.
Q111 Chairman: Minister, your own reaction to this
memorandum was that you said that it was the sort of information that had been
around for years and you were yourself surprised that it was front-page news.
Mr Ainsworth: I think I saw the story while I was out
there. I am not dead certain about
that, but I think I saw the story while I was out there. I could not understand, I think it was, was
it, the front page of The Telegraph that
I saw, and I did not know why it was on the front page of The Telegraph. I have seen
papers over the period since I have been appointed and that says that there is
not an awful lot left in the locker, that we have got a couple of battle groups
with the commitments that we have got at the moment to respond to circumstances
that may arise, so why someone would take that comment from a leaked document
and stick it on the front page of a national newspaper, that was my reaction to
it, that I did not quite understand it.
Mr Holloway: I
would like to ask Mr Bowen what sort of numbers do you think we might be in in
Iraq in five years' time and what sort of conjecture have you done with regard
to American force levels, say, in five years' time with, as we know, a change
in president, and is it true that they are building bases for the very long
term?
Chairman: I would like to stop that question there
because we are just about to get on to a slightly different question that moves
in the same general direction from David Crausby, but Brian Jenkins, you wanted
to fill in.
Mr Jenkins: Yes, Chairman, a few
minutes ago, on the same issue.
Chairman: There was a queue.
Q112 Mr Jenkins:
I know, there is always a queue.
Minister, you will be aware of the situation in Basra. When you refer to criminality and small,
petty criminality at times, Sunni militia are not small or petty criminals, and
they may be a part of the solution as well as being a part of the problem. Have you considered and looked at what
approach we can take in establishing the rule of law - which we are all obliged
to do - in Basra, when you know these militias are funded by the large-scale
theft of oil. You know that the
measuring equipment has been switched off so that no one can tell how much oil
they have been pinching, you know that this stuff goes into a port, it is
brought on board a tanker and the tanker sails out. This is not something that can slip out in the middle of the
night, so who is responsible for trying to control the export of this stolen
oil and the funding of the militia? Is
it somebody maybe in the Government that is overseeing this operation, because
this militia is a long term ally of theirs; how do we come to grips with
this? Our Forces are not the right
people to do this possibly, but what is the situation with regard to the large
scale theft of this oil which is funding the struggle against us?
Mr Ainsworth: I hope I did not
refer to petty criminality; I am sure there is petty criminality going on in
Basra as there is in my own constituency, Coventry North East. It is the grand scale criminality that is a
huge part of the problem in the south, there is no doubt about it; we are not
dealing with the sectarian divide as they are in other parts of Iraq, these
people are religiously and ethnically cohesive, but there are sections of the
community there and the power structures there who are lining their own pockets
at the expense of their own people. The
whole purpose of our supporting the Iraqi security forces in terms of the
police and the army and urging the Government to take effective action and
trying to advise them on the action that they are taking, in order to try to
get a grip of that the Iraqi Government need to appreciate the huge importance
of Basra. It is their window on the
world, 85% to 90% of their wealth goes out through that city, it is of vital
importance to the future of Iraq. The
very fact that we have started the process of handing control to the Iraqi
security forces has focused the mind on the dangers from their point of
view. I do not think that we would have
seen the appointments of Mohan and Jalil, with the kind of remit that I hope
they have been given to do, if that focus had not come to the fore. We can only hope that those appointments
continue to achieve the good start that they have made and that they are backed
up when they start to take the difficult decisions that they are going to have
to take. The police in particular; if
we are going to be able to sort out some of the problems that there are with
the police, where corruption and infiltration has been a difficulty, then there
are going to have to be difficult things done by the command structure and the
Government of Iraq is going to have to back them up. We are going to have to inform the Government of Iraq and support
the Government of Iraq in those difficult decisions they have to take over the
coming period.
Q113 Mr Jenkins:
But these are tankers, Ministers. These
are actually tankers that are sailing out with stolen oil. If we are in control of the Straits, if we
are in control of the port, how can they slip past us? Who is turning a blind eye here?
Mr Ainsworth: There is no
turning of a blind eye on the part of British Forces; British Forces gather
intelligence, try to exercise what force and power that they can and are trying
to build the capacity of the Iraqis themselves so that we have an Iraqi
solution to an Iraqi problem. As the
Brigadier said earlier, the people who want us out are the people who have a
vested interest in that continuing; it is not the Government of Iraq, it is the
people who have a vested interest in that continuing and them being allowed to
continue to rip off their own people; they are the people who want us out.
Q114 Chairman: Minister, before we move on can I ask one
question arising out of something you said, namely that one of the important
roles of the British military is to train the Iraqi Army. A witness who came before us a month ago
said that the issue is not training, it is loyalty. How would you comment on that?
Mr Ainsworth: The issue is
training, there is a capacity problem.
We have almost single-handedly taken on the role of trying to recreate
the Iraqi Navy down at Um-Qasr, actually giving them the ability to do the
job. That is an important part of it
and we should not just wipe that off the board, but loyalty is hugely
important. Certainly, the commanders of
the Army need to know that the Army is on side for what they are attempting to
achieve, and that is stability, loyalty to an Iraqi state. That has got to be the first priority; Mohan
and Habib recognise that and they recognise the importance of that and, yes, I
would put that higher than training.
Q115 Chairman: But if you would put loyalty higher than
training you would accept, I think, that loyalty cannot be imposed by foreign
troops.
Mr Ainsworth: No, it cannot be
imposed by foreign troops.
Brigadier Hughes: There is
clearly an issue of loyalty and affiliation, whether that be tribal or familial
or political. What we have found with
the Iraqi Army is that working outside their own area, outside their own
locale, they have been impressive on a number of operations, not least the
three battalions of the 10th Division who have been working in
Baghdad as part of the current surge operation. Where we have had difficulties is where Basra battalions or those
recruited from Basra have been asked to work in Basra, and you can imagine the
reasons why, it must be immensely difficult for them. That is why, as part of the plan to bring an additional brigade,
as part of a new division, into South East Iraq, one of the plans that General
Habib is looking at, the commander of 10 Div, is to switch the battalions
around so that those from Basra will work in Dhi Qar and those from Dhi Qar
will work in Basra in order to try and get away from those local serious
difficulties and challenges that the loyalty issue makes them face, Chairman.
Chairman: That is very helpful, thank you. David Crausby.
Q116 Mr Crausby:
You made the comment, Minister, that we are not planning to stay in Iraq long
term.
Mr Ainsworth: In the numbers we
are at the moment.
Q117 Mr Crausby:
And that was very much supported last week when the Ministry of Defence
announced a further reduction in troops of 500 conditional upon the handover of
Basra Palace to Iraqi security control.
Can you tell us something about the process of drawdown and what conditions
will be necessary for us to make some further progress. I understand the legitimate sensitivity
about numbers and I accept that you would not want to give us that kind of
detail, but can you give us some indication as to what the conditions would be?
Mr Ainsworth: You would like to
lure me there in any case. On the kind
of timescales that were mentioned before it is enormously difficult to think in
those timescales, based on what we have got at the moment. We have got a plan that we are working on to
get out of the city and to hand over the facilities that we have got in the
city. We have managed successfully to
hand over other facilities; the Iraqis have gone in and occupied and taken
control. The next stage to that is
provincial Iraqi control and we think that we can achieve that in the near
future. To try to see what the
consequences of that are is enormously difficult. What will be the reaction of these various forces that are
currently fighting over the schools in Basra city; if we are not there and they
are not able to focus on us, does that give a new opportunity to people like
General Mohan to peel off certain elements of them to gain the loyalty of parts
of them to get effective control? It is
very difficult to see. I do not think
you can plan too far ahead of provincial Iraqi control; we have to get the plan
in place and executed to hand over control of the city, we have to see the
consequences of that. If the
consequences allow us to move on to provincial control and get that done, then
after we see the shape of that we have got to talk to the Iraqi Government and,
yes, our Coalition partners about what further contribution they want from us,
what further contribution we are capable of making, what they want from us on
an ongoing basis, what we can offer going forward. You cannot really have those conversations until you get there,
until you see the shape of it and until you see the consequences of handing
over that fourth province to the Iraqis.
Q118 Mr Crausby:
There is clearly a minimum force level, there cannot be a lot below what we are
now and it is that that we are interested in.
You clearly cannot drop down by 500, 500, 500 to a point where we are
not able to protect our forces, and we must be coming close to that point.
Mr Ainsworth: The force is not
self-sustaining and able to protect itself and do the other work that it has to
do below about 5000, so we are approaching the levels where we cannot go
further.
Q119 Mr Crausby:
The Secretary of State said we will then be in a position of over-watch after
we have reduced by the 500. The point
we are interested in is, is over-watch that necessary within Iraq itself and to
what extent could we provide effective over-watch from outside Iraq, in Kuwait
for instance?
Mr Ainsworth: That is what we have
got to see.
Q120 Chairman: We would not expect details.
Mr Ainsworth: That is what we
are going to have to see and that is what we are going to have to talk about
when we see what over-watch is. If it
goes as smoothly as the other three provinces then there can be real hope and
we can discuss that situation at the time, but until we see what it is - in an
actual over-watch situation we cannot get much below 5000 because we have to be
able to sustain the force and self-protect the force itself, so over-watch in
itself does not take us down a lot lower than that.
Q121 Mr Jones:
A simple question; what is over-watch?
Mr Ainsworth: What is
over-watch? Over-watch is being there,
able in the absolute extreme to offer support, but to stand back and allow the
Iraqi Forces themselves to try to deal with the situations that arise.
Chairman: You have been talking about Provincial Iraqi Control,
Minister. Willie Rennie.
Q122 Willie Rennie:
You have already mentioned that you would hope to achieve Provincial Iraqi Control
in the near future, and I can understand why you do not want to be any more
precise about that, but why has it been so difficult and would you respond to
our concern that the reason why it has not already been achieved is for
domestic American purposes rather than the ability of the Iraqi military to be
able to cope in the South?
Mr Ainsworth: We are a sovereign
nation and there is a process that needs to be gone through in order to get to Provincial
Iraqi Control. We have not got sole
control of that process, that is true, the Iraqi Government themselves have
been part of that, our allies have been part of that, so those discussions have
to take place and we have to be part of that.
It is not true to say that it is the Americans who are preventing that;
the biggest single part of that discussion is the discussion with the Iraqi
Security Forces themselves: what is their capacity, what is their capability,
are they ready for it? We may be
approaching that point where they are.
Q123 Willie Rennie:
If we had already achieved the military capability, surely that is the
overriding factor rather than the domestic politics of perhaps another country.
Mr Ainsworth: They need to
understand as well the consequences of us going to over-watch and what we will
and what we will not do. It is no good
them accepting provincial control and assuming that we are going to come in and
support them on a regular basis because that will not be the situation.
Mr Bowen: Can I just say that
there are criteria and some of the criteria that need to be dealt with cannot
be dealt with in a completely objective and scientific way. There are four criteria: one is about the
security situation, another is about the state of the Iraqi Security Forces and
their ability to cope, another is about the state of governance - in other
words the political control and the processes - and the fourth is the ability
of the multinational forces to support Provincial Iraqi Control. There are therefore some very clear
categories, against which we can report in order to make the case for Provincial
Iraqi Control and then there is a process which has been established which
involves submitting to Baghdad, and in Baghdad both the Coalition and the Iraqi
Government coming together to agree that province X or province Y is ready for
transfer. That same process has been
applied not just in the South but elsewhere and fairly recently in the North.
Q124 Willie Rennie:
You do not believe that domestic US politics were a significant factor in the
decision not to transfer already.
Mr Bowen: There is a
process. All I can say is there is a
process which is Iraq-based, in Baghdad, involving the multinational forces and
the Iraqi Government and that is what has determined the PIC of provinces
across Iraq.
Q125 Chairman: Can you tell us what the current status of
the Governor of Basra is, please?
Mr Ainsworth: Well, he is ...
Q126 Chairman: It sounds as though the answer is no.
Mr Ainsworth: It is in the
public domain and everybody knows that there have been attempts to remove the
governor from within the structures within Basra. The Prime Minister himself has said that he should cease to
operate and no longer has effective office there; nonetheless he does continue
to operate. That is a matter for the
Iraqis at the end of the day, we cannot intervene in that, we can only say to
the Iraqi Government it is not an aid to stability that they are unable to sort
that situation out, they need to get that situation sorted out one way or
another and they need to bring clarity to that. It would be a huge help if they did.
Q127 Willie Rennie:
Going to the other provinces that have already handed over to PIC, how are they
performing in terms of security and politics and what has our role been in
those provinces since they were handed over?
Mr Ainsworth: We have not had to
intervene.
Brigadier Hughes: We have on a
couple of occasions.
Mr Ainsworth: Two of the
provinces have been better than the other in terms of the degree of problems
that there have been. Maysaan has been
the more difficult of the three, but by and large the Iraqis have dealt with
those problems themselves. The
Brigadier can give you some information on the interventions that we have had
to make.
Brigadier Hughes: We will go
round clockwise. In Al-Muthanna, which
was the first to go, west of Basra, it has been largely peaceful but it is
largely desert as well, which is one of the reasons for the peace. It was interesting actually that straight
after it gained PIC the Australians, who had been there - along with the
Japanese but the Australians were looking after the security as part of MND (South
East) - tried paying an early visit to the governor in Al Muthanna just to
check that everything was okay; they were given a pretty quick cold shoulder:
we are now looking after this, we no longer require you in Muthanna and,
indeed, we have never had to re-intervene there. Dhi Qar has been a little more problematic, particularly recently
in An Nasiriyah, the main city in Dhi Qar, where there have been similar sorts
of militant JAM versus Iraqi Police Service issues that have been going on in
Basra. There was a stand-off there a
few weeks ago which the Iraqi Security Forces dealt with, with Coalition
support, but when I say "Coalition support" it was air support and ISTAR - that
is surveillance and target acquisition assets - rather than boots on the
ground. In Maysaan, again, there have
been some challenges up there but it is worth saying that actually what is
going on in Maysaan is difficult to tell, even when you are there, so some of
this is grey to us. There have
certainly been issues with militias and the police service in Maysaan; the
Iraqis have dealt with that largely themselves and the only intervention there
has been into Maysaan Province, again quite recently, over the last two or
three weeks, which has been a national operation because even after a province
has PIC'd the national government keeps responsibility for terrorism. There was a Coalition operation, a US
operation, into Maysaan which Prime Minister Maliki approved and Prime Minister
Maliki gave down to there, but we have not re-intervened at provincial level
back into Maysaan. The short answer is
that there have been one or two blips, as we expected, this is not peace, love
and harmony through three provinces, nobody would pretend that, but it has been
largely good. Basra, of course, is a
different order of issue because of the population, oil, etc.
Q128 Willie Rennie:
Relations between the central government and these provinces on terrorism or
anything that is reserved to the central government, how are they developing?
Brigadier Hughes: Normally on a
mobile phone. It is that, it is the
personal relationships that you see out
there; if something is going to go off it does need the Prime Minister or his
known representative to make a call, it cannot be done in the administrative
way that we would recognise here.
Q129 Willie Rennie:
Relationships are good?
Brigadier Hughes: They are
mixed, and it depends on who is after what at any one time, so you will find
that Governor Wa'ili, for example, will quite often say "I need to go and check
with Baghdad" and then at other times he will ignore Baghdad, so they shift
around depending on who is after what, frankly, but they exist, the
relationships exist.
Q130 Mr Jenkin:
Just as a supplementary and as a linked question, that sort of Maysaan
operation that we have been doing, is that the sort of thing we might continue
doing from the position of over-watch after transition?
Brigadier Hughes: It is
possible. What we do not envisage in
over-watch is one package fits all, so if the Iraqi Security Forces were going
to ask us for support once they have got provincial control, we do not envisage
them necessarily meaning that we have got to put a battle group into the middle
of the city. What they might be short
of is intelligence and surveillance assets, so it might be just flying
something high up, or it might be another niche capability or a piece of
logistics that they need putting in place.
We foresee in over-watch maybe nothing or maybe very limited and a scaled
approach to it.
Q131 Mr Jenkin:
To carry on giving MNF a little rest, could you give us a thumbnail sketch from
a military viewpoint, where are the Iraqi Armed Forces now in terms of
capability and development, particularly the 10th Division, what
more do they need?
Brigadier Hughes: The 10th
Division, as I have said, has had some genuine success and we have been pleased
and we have had people with them whilst they have had that success, with
battalions up in Baghdad and with some operations down in Basra Province and
elsewhere in South East Iraq. They do
have routine control alongside the police, but largely it is the Army in the
three provinces that we have mentioned that have already gone to PIC. They have had effect in some of the
operations in Basra; where we have seen difficulty is where the loyalty issue
then comes into play and, as I have said, we have been trying to address
that. In terms of equipment levels,
they are well-equipped at the moment with their frontline kit so they have got
100% of the up-armoured Humvees that they were due to get and their other
vehicles and equipment. The British
Government has put £54 million through ASIRIS into 10 Div as well as the
equipment that has flowed down from Baghdad, originally from the Coalition and
now from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence.
Where they still lack and we know they still lack is at the rear end;
they have not got a big logistics footprint yet, but that was planned, they do
lack some of the intelligence assets, but are they a reasonable force, given
where they have come from in the timeframe that they have come from, yes they
are. Do they have problems? Yes, they
do. In terms of the defence border, the
Department for Border Enforcement (the DBE) we continue to mentor them. We have seen them make quite impressive
strides at some of the key crossing points with the Iran-Iraq border where we
have tightened up some of the real issues there, and it was where a lot of the
smuggling was going on - it is where some of the smuggling is still going on because
you are not going to stop that. They
continue to be taken forward and, as I say, we continue with the SSR process on
that. The Iraqi Police Service is the
biggest challenge; there is no doubt about that and it remains so in
Basra. We identified quite a while ago
and we have continued to work on this with the Iraqis, on getting the Iraqi
Police Service in Basra as best as it can possibly be. Effectively there is a small, murderous,
criminal element within the Iraqi Police Force which we have to root out, and
indeed we have upped our strike and detention operations against them in recent
months in order to do that because they are truly irreconcilable. There are those within the Police Force whom
General Jalil, for example, has said recently are totally incompetent and will
always be so. If that is the case then
we need to drive forward with trying to get them out of the Police Force in
some way. Jalil is charged with that
and only the Iraqi Government is going to be able to do that, with some sort of
resettlement package if you like that is going to keep them quiet once they
have gone. The rest are trainable and
we continue to train where we can - during Operation SINBAD last year, for
example, going into every police station to make sure that certain standards
were met - and with some of their leadership out at the Joint Leadership
Academy which is at the operating base at the air station now, and we are
getting quite a lot of senior police through.
We understand, therefore, what a problem the Iraqi Police Service in
Basra is, but we are doing what we can to put that right as far as we are able.
Q132 Mr Jenkin:
Very briefly, because you have given very comprehensive answers, but two very
brief questions, how long is it going to take before we can take our hands off
so to speak?
Brigadier Hughes: We do not
know. We know that we can continue to
do what we can, but to some extent that SSR timeline will not be the driver
because you will be driven by other timelines as well about Provincial Iraqi Control,
so it is when the Iraqis decide and the Coalition decides that we are ready for
transition that you will come to a view then as to what to take forward
post-transition into PIC. We have
programmes where we can tick off units, but to give you a dead stop time I
could not do.
Q133 Mr Jenkin:
Concerns that were expressed to us about the Iraqi Government being very slow
at their equipment programmes; would you agree with that and can that be
addressed?
Brigadier Hughes: It can be
addressed. We have people inside the
Iraqi MoD - in fact we are putting another procurement specialist in in the
next couple of weeks. They have been
slow; one of the issues is the anti-corruption law that the Coalition put in
place to try and address some of the very serious corruption. That makes people quite frightened to sign
contracts, but we do have people in place to try and drive that forward.
Chairman: That struck us as being improved in terms of
the Iraqi Government actually procuring equipment over last year. Dai Havard.
Q134 Mr Havard:
Within that, however, we had a meeting with the Defence Minister while we were
there and he was very clear that General Mohan's appointment in Basra was an
important step in unifying command and control for all security assets - that
was the euphemism for going in and trying to sort the thing out and give a
consistent, coherent pattern there. The
resources he has at his disposal to do that, however, we also discussed that,
and it is this 5th Brigade within the 10th Division and
this 14th Division that apparently is going to appear and is going
to apparently drop out of the sky as far as I am concerned. I have little confidence, frankly, that that
is going to come on the timeframe that they were telling us and is going to be
equipped - given our experience of 12 months to get to the stage we are with
the 10th Division. Can you
say something about that because this really relates to how long we are going
to stay and what we are going to do, and this business about their capacity
there to do it. General Mohan may well
be able to knock heads together and accommodate militias and have some
architecture of control; however, what resources have you got to actually
police it?
Mr Ainsworth: The equipment is
there for the existing people, the existing 10th Division.
Q135 Mr Havard:
The 10th Division, yes.
Mr Ainsworth: The idea is that
they grow the 5th Brigade of 10th Division; they are
already part way there, but they are not fully equipped, so they are still in
the process of being formed, and then at some stage after that you can
effectively split the division and create 14th Division and effect
this turnaround that the Brigadier talked about, so that we can get the
Basra-based people out of Basra and into the other provinces.
Q136 Mr Havard:
It is like the South Wales Police beating up South Wales miners - I have seen
it, yes, I know that.
Mr Ainsworth: It is a big job
and whether they have got the numbers yet is part of the conversation that we
are having.
Q137 Mr Havard:
They have not got the equipment, they have not got the capacity, they are not
there. They are a fiction.
Mr Ainsworth: At the same time
that they are saying that they have not got the numbers and they are attempting
to grow their capacity, they are equally beginning to express their confidence
in being able to take over in Basra town and being able to take over in the
province. We have to balance that
conversation, we have to understand that conversation and they have to
understand the size of the job they are taking on.
Q138 Mr Havard:
The Defence Minister seemed to think they would be there and they would be
available by September. I am afraid I
do not share his confidence.
Mr Ainsworth: Who will be there
by September?
Q139 Mr Havard:
The 14th Division.
Mr Ainsworth: I do not think
that is the timescale that people are working to but I am not very sure.
Brigadier Hughes: Not everybody
is giving the same date. You are right
to be sceptical, things do not normally run to time. We have had some people say September at the left hand scale of
it; we have heard some say early in the new year, January. Somewhere in there is probably about right,
but the important thing here - and we have genuinely seen signs of this - is
the Government recognising the importance of Basra. It is always uppermost in their minds, for perfectly
understandable reasons, that Baghdad comes first and so a lot of the equipment
flow has gone straight into Baghdad. If
there is a genuine belief that Mohan can deliver, and in the importance of
Basra, we will see it come on line quicker.
Q140 Chairman: Is the entire purpose of this 14th
Division to allow for the stationing of Basra troops out of Basra and other
troops into Basra, or is that not?
Mr Ainsworth: It is a big part
of it, whether it is the only part I am not too sure.
Brigadier Hughes: It is not the
sole reason, Chairman. The reason was
that there was a recognition that were not enough army battalions in the
province and elsewhere in MND (South East), but it is a pretty key side effect
for us that we now are able to do that.
Q141 Chairman: Can I ask when you first heard of this 14th
Division?
Brigadier Hughes: Yes, two or
three months ago. That is from my
memory but it is about that sort of time scale as to when it was being put
forward.
Mr Havard: I have to raise a
question with you, which is in my head: I look at Anbar and that is a question
of having local resources there take control locally, and trying to then
assimilate them into the normal forces of Iraq and the national Army
process. I am just wondering, in terms
of actually winning that capacity in Basra, whether or not Mohan has to do that
sort of exercise, because I do not see this capacity coming from anywhere else
on the timescale that they are talking about and, more importantly, which
chimes back into the point that was being made earlier on, how long we can stay
and how long apparently we can afford to stay.
It is a rhetorical question.
Chairman: Let us assume that is rhetorical and move on
to the police.
Q142 Willie Rennie:
You have actually greatly covered some of my questions; I just have another
couple. You did not mention much about
the militias in Basra but there is quite a significant militia
infiltration. Some people view it as
being reasonably stable, even if they only patrol their own areas and protect
their own circumstance. How do you deal
with that, do you accept that or what method is there to try and root out the
inappropriate lines of accountability here?
Mr Ainsworth: This harks back to
some of the questions we were talking about, about what General Mohan is up to
in some of the conversations that he is having. What is the raison d'etre of some of the militias, even some of
those that may be attacking us, what is their motive, what are they up to, are
they winnable, are they fundamentally prepared to support the Iraqi state at
some point? If so they are worth
talking to and they are worth trying to win over. If they are totally maligned, for whatever reason, supporting
corrupt political processes or with a political motive that is totally contrary
to the well-being of the country, then they are not. Getting that understanding, seeing who can win and who cannot
win, is an important part of what has got to go on. On top of that, coming back to the rhetorical point, you have to
try to get effective forces into the area and if they are being intimidated
because their families live alongside these elements of the JAM and they are
unable to operate, then commanders have to try and deal with that. If they can deal with that by rotation then
they are going to do so.
Q143 Willie Rennie:
If the UK Forces were to withdraw could our police trainers still be there to
support the police; would that be something that would be safe?
Mr Ainsworth: We do some of the
training out in the COB. The further we
withdraw then the more difficult it is for us to operate. If we see a transformed situation, if we see
a new attitude, then we will have that ability, but potentially it is going to
be more difficult, is it not?
Chairman: We touched earlier on the surge, but let us
get back to that in a bit more detail now.
Bernard Jenkin.
Q144 Mr Jenkin:
I am bound to preface my question by pointing out that we did get very diverse
opinions on whether the surge was the right thing or the wrong thing from the
British military, underlining a point made by Mr Jones, and I would say the
British military is very divided and publicly divided. Would you recognise that that is a problem
that you are inheriting in terms of the capacity of the Armed Forces to
deliver, that some of the Armed Forces are campaigning for Britain to get out
whilst some are trying to succeed in what they are doing. Do you recognise that as a problem?
Mr Ainsworth: There may be
scepticism about whether or not the surge will succeed, but it is too early ---
Q145 Mr Jenkin:
My question was really about the state of the morale of our Armed Forces.
Mr Ainsworth: Our Armed Forces.
Q146 Mr Jenkin:
Yes, which are divided, with some branches of the Armed Forces actively
campaigning to get us out of Iraq as quickly as possible because of the
overstretch. Do you actually recognise
that that is a problem?
Mr Ainsworth: I saw no evidence
of morale problems.
Q147 Mr Jenkin:
Not in Iraq, the problem is back home.
Mr Ainsworth: As a matter of
fact I was surprised by the high morale that there is there.
Q148 Mr Jenkin:
So were we, we were very impressed, but back home in the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Ainsworth: They were upbeat
there, doing the job that they joined the Army to do and there is not a morale
problem there at all.
Q149 Mr Jenkin:
I totally agree with that, but in the Ministry of Defence you are inheriting a
very big problem with some senior military officers actively almost campaigning
publicly to get us out, at the same time as other branches of the Armed Forces
are desperately trying to succeed. Is
that not really a result of a long period of protracted overstretch which is
what General Dannatt was referring to?
Mr Ainsworth: You know that I am
new to the department.
Q150 Mr Jenkin:
I know.
Mr Ainsworth: My impression is
that there is - and this is out there as well - an intelligent conversation
going on about how long we can continue to do the things that we can do, how
important it is to hand on that job to the Iraqis themselves, and it is right
that people discuss those issues and examine those issues, and that is taking
place. We are at this transition point,
as the Brigadier said, which is an enormously difficult position.
Chairman: We will move on to the Surge, please.
Q151 Mr Jenkin:
We heard some very positive assessment of the Surge, but perhaps I could ask
the Brigadier, would you not agree that the Surge is really about increased
manoeuvrability and capability, it is not a policy, an end in itself?
Brigadier Hughes: There have
been a number of successes that have come from the Surge. The figures for vehicle-borne IEDs are down;
the figures for murders of civilians are significantly down. It is true to say that that additional
security that has come in Baghdad has not just been displaced somewhere else;
in some of the other provinces AQI in particular is being given a hard time,
but I do not think that General Petraeus ever said that the Surge was an end in
itself, what he was trying to do was to give some time for the politics to
breathe. Also, there are two measures
which people will be looking closely at which we do not have a feel for yet
fully: to what extent the breathing space that the military surge has given in
the security situation - and I think it has - has allowed the politics to
breathe, and to what extent are the Iraqi Security Forces able to back up what
has largely been this Coalition surge.
Those are the two questions which remain unanswered as of today.
Q152 Mr Jenkin:
Could you say something that we heard a little about, which is the rewriting of
the campaign plan for the Coalition, putting politics at the top of the agenda
as opposed to merely the suppression of violence, because this was a very
positive development?
Brigadier Hughes: I can say very
little about it because I saw only little of it when I was last in Baghdad two
or three weeks ago. It is being
rewritten, it is not yet out. I do not
know any senior officer in Baghdad on the military side who does not understand
that it is about politics, not about security; everybody gets that a bit of it
is security, but people do get the bigger piece.
Q153 Linda Gilroy:
In that context, Minister, what significance do you attach to the recent White
House report which concluded that there had been satisfactory progress on only
8 of the 18 benchmarks which were set out?
Mr Ainsworth: It was only an
interim report and, you are right, the amount of progress that could be
reported was partial. I do not think
there are too many conclusions that can be drawn yet on whether or not the Surge
has had the success that people hoped it would, and we really will have to wait
for the report that will be made in September and the assessment that will be
done then.
Q154 Linda Gilroy:
The report sets out a variety of benchmarks, some of which are to do with
creating security and what might be described as leading indicators, whereas
some of the other things, the things that have not been met, include things
like satisfactory legislation for de-Ba'athification, hydrocarbon resources,
provincial law, an amnesty law, and it is on the whole those more political
ones that are not being met. Those
might be described more as lagging indicators that will take more time to
achieve - the sort of breathing space that Chris Hughes referred to just
now. Do you think, therefore, that the
benchmarks set out a realistic set of indicators on which we should be judging
things, our allies should be judging things, come September?
Mr Ainsworth: You are right that
the politics are potentially the area that is lagging, and if we do not get
some agreement on hydrocarbons then the ability of the Iraqis to build trust
across the various regions and across the communities is going to be damaged,
so those political benchmarks plus a real reaching out to the Sunni community
are essential, otherwise all of the effort that has been made during the surge
will not have that backfill.
Q155 Linda Gilroy:
Do you have any sense from your experience thus far of how far the Iraqi
Government is successfully moving to bridging the sectarian divide?
Mr Ainsworth: I do not yet; I
did not manage to get up there, as I said, and I have not really got a good
handle on how far progress is being made there.
Q156 Linda Gilroy:
Is it perhaps something that Desmond could comment on?
Mr Bowen: Chairman, actually
from the beginning when the Surge was first announced the intention was to put
politics and indeed economics in the frontline and, through better security, to
provide an opportunity for Iraqis to take charge of their own destiny and make
politics work and indeed make economics operate in a way that would be helpful
overall but, not least, helpful in showing that the Iraqis could take charge of
their own destiny in that way. What we
would say is that reconciliation and the whole business of politics in Iraq has
been slower and more complicated than we would like; that is very much the area
where we would like to see good progress and it is fair to say that we are
disappointed that things are not moving forward more quickly. The hydrocarbons law is an absolute classic
in terms of the interaction of economics and politics, and that is something on
which some progress has been made but it has not got to the point where it is
resolved. The same can be said on some
of the other issues. You talked about
de-Ba'athification in the same way, amnesty, likewise on the provincial
election law; is this happening as fast as we would like? No, it certainly is not. Is there cause to despair? That is something that we really cannot afford
to do and we really need to be, on the political side, pushing forward - not
just us and Coalition partners but the wider international community to
encourage the Iraqis to do the things that need to be done in both politics and
economics.
Q157 Linda Gilroy:
I spent some time with the British-American Parliamentary Group over in the
States just last week, and there seems to be very much a public perception in
the States that the benchmarks are about military success rather than the
political breathing space which has been created which may take a little longer
to take root in the space that has been created. Do you think that there is a danger that there will be too much
emphasis placed on assessing the military benchmarks rather than giving that
space for the political benchmarks to have the time that they need to take
root, and is there anything that we can do to influence that?
Mr Bowen: The 18 benchmarks were
set out by Congress, so clearly very much in a political context and in a
political context of some tension between the executive and the legislature.
Q158 Linda Gilroy:
And the Presidential race of course, and that is something which may not be so
apparent over here in the United Kingdom, that the assessment of the benchmarks
now and in September are very much subject to people seeking political
advantage basically.
Mr Bowen: I am sure that is the
case. What the American Government, in
particular Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus, have is in presenting their
view from Baghdad, to be putting it in the right sort of context and making the
right sort of balance between as it were the buying time and the political and
economic progress. That is no doubt
something that will be judged in the White House and we will be having contact
with the Americans in the process.
Q159 Chairman: Before you leave the benchmarks I have a
question, then Bernard Jenkin has a question, then we will come back to
you. My question is do you have a
sense, Mr Bowen, that the very setting of benchmarks by Western
timescales, possibly to some sort of US political advantage, goes down badly in
Iraq and leads to a process where they are bound to come up in some way with
some sort of rather unsatisfactory result?
Mr Bowen: I cannot speak for how
it is taken in Baghdad, my only comment on as it were the 18 benchmarks is that
they were selected. They could have
been a different set, they could have been longer or they could have been
different. As I say, there is a
political context in that which we have to recognise is there, but whether they
are the optimal means of making objective judgment I will not comment.
Q160 Mr Jenkin:
Is there not a much clearer message we should be conveying about these
benchmarks - and maybe this is one for the Minister - in that first of all they
provide an easy target for the insurgents and the terrorists to stop us
achieving. Secondly, many of them are
irrelevant. Frankly, the rights of
minority parties in the legislature is not a top military priority or a top
political priority; winning the hearts and minds of Sunni tribal leaders
I would say is a massively important priority, but it is not one of the
benchmarks. Is this not a rubbish way
of organising a counter-insurgency campaign and would not the President be
pleased if the British Government said it loudly and clearly?
Mr Ainsworth: The benchmarks
have been made and the process has started.
We will have to see what comes out of it in September.
Chairman: What a brilliant answer. Linda Gilroy.
Q161 Linda Gilroy:
I am particularly interested if Mr Bowen has any further comments on the
bridging of the sectarian divide and one of the benchmarks which has not been
met in the interim report, which is on moving towards de-Ba'athification law,
and also whether there is any up to date information about the questions we
were asking in January, that is the release of the Sunni detainees and whether
the Iraqi Government are moving towards that.
If you have not got information to hand perhaps you would let the
Committee have an update on the situation because that is seen as very much
symbolic of the Maliki Government doing something which it does have within its
control, which would show goodwill in that respect.
Mr Bowen: Chairman, we ought to
give you a note on that. The one thing
I would say in terms of recent developments is that the withdrawal some months
ago of the large Sunni block from the Council of Representatives was reversed in
recent days, so they have now reverted as it were to being part of that
assembly. How has that come about? By way of a long and difficult process of
political negotiation involving the Prime Minister and the Shia parties
operating together to try and bring them back into the fold. It is not as though politics is not
happening, but it is a very complex, convoluted and long drawn-out process, so
it is worth saying that there is some movement but I do not think that that
equals reconciliation.
Q162 Willie Rennie: There has been much said about the tribal
reawakening in Anbar Province, but do you not think we should be quite cautious
because it is just one province, we do not know how long it is going to last,
and we do not know whether we can replicate that in other parts of the
country? What is your view on the
tribal reawakening?
Mr Ainsworth: There has got to be a silent hope. There is an indication that the people
themselves, on the ground, object to al-Qaeda, in particular, in this case, so
there has to be a silent hope. Whether
we can draw too many conclusions from that that are going to be applicable in
different parts of the country has yet to be seen. Tribal structures in the more rural areas are a lot stronger than
they are in the cities, where there is an altogether different dynamic that
goes on. We should not dismiss it.
Q163 Willie Rennie: We met Petraeus when we were out there and I
was very impressed then; I thought he was very competent. I had the feeling, though - and I am trying
not to be a bit like Dad's Army:
"We're all doomed!" - that the die was cast and that we were kind of going
through the motions for the political domestic agenda back in the States, and
that really progress was not going to be significantly made in the timescales
that had been talked about.
Mr Ainsworth: I have not met Petraeus yet, so I have not
been able to get a handle. My visit was
confined to south-east Iraq.
Q164 Chairman: Can we move on to the issue of Iran? Can you give us a brief assessment of the
extent of Iranian influence in Iraq?
Mr Ainsworth: The influence is quite strong. It is long-standing. There have always been close relationships,
particularly in the south; there are people who live on both sides of the
border who choose not to recognise the border, and that has been so for a very
long time. There is clear evidence of
malign influence across the border in the Basra area. There is little doubt, when you look at some of the munitions
that are being used against our people, to kill our people, they are not being
made in garages in down-town Basra; they are coming from outside the area. We hope that the Iranians will take
seriously the need for their active engagement in the area and their active
effort to prevent the kind of things that are very, very clearly
happening. It cannot be in Iran's
long-term interests that we have got chaos and instability on their border; it
has got to be more important to them in many ways than it is to us. We have got to use our efforts to try to
convince the Iranian Government that that is the case and that they could do a
lot more. It is certainly the feeling
of our people on the ground that there is lots of activity coming across the
border, there is lots of effective support being given and there needs to be
more effort to control it.
Q165 Chairman: So, clearly, you have the sense that the
Iranians are fuelling the violence. Do
you think that that would continue were multinational forces to leave the MND (South-East)
area?
Mr Ainsworth: I do not think it would necessarily end. It might (and this is one of the things that
General Mohan says) help him to be able to focus the minds of the Iraqi Shia in
Basra themselves as to where their loyalties ought to lie, because most of them
are loyal to the Iraqi State; they are fundamentally nationalist in their
outlook. Therefore, if it gives him
more space, if he is able to say: "Right, the British have pulled out of Basra
Palace, there is no British presence in our city now" - if he is able to say
that to elements of the militia and able to say: "What's your excuse for the
continuing violence" then that might give him the ability to make some progress
in some of the dynamics he is trying to achieve on the ground.
Q166 Chairman: The Iraq Commission suggests that the UK
should seek to promote the constructive engagement of Iraq's neighbours. Does that mean that you should be talking,
do you think, to the Iranian Government?
Mr Ainsworth: I think we should talk to the Iranian
Government. It is essential that we
talk to the Iranian Government, but I think it is important that the Iraqi
Government talks to the Iranian Government as well, and that they build a
strong relationship. It is one of the
most key relationships in the area, so Iranians can be a force for good. They can also create a huge problem, and
that problem is not going to benefit them in the long-term. Whether they see it that way I am not at all
sure, but dialogue would do us no harm whatsoever.
Q167 Mr Havard: That leads me on to the question about the
United Nations, because I agree with all of that and I think the question of
how you incentivise the neighbours in a constructive way to help solve the
problem is a huge discussion. Quite
clearly, the military utility of what we are doing is coming to an end and,
therefore, the politics need to be taken forward. I just love the whole thing, Desmond, about the benchmarks not
being an "optimal" way and Bernard's contrast of "it's a pile of rubbish"! He has obviously cancelled his subscription
to the American Enterprise Institute's journals now, which is a good thing.
Mr Ainsworth: That was not what he was trying to
achieve! I did not read it that way,
anyway.
Mr Jenkin: It was congressional benchmarks.
Q168 Mr Havard: Yes, written by the American Enterprise
Institute. The criteria by which all
these things are going to be judged in terms, however, is not just in America;
it is going to be in the United Nations because, at the moment, we have a
coalition of the willing, essentially, prosecuting a UN mandate to help to do
two things in Iraq: help the Iraqis and, also, fight al-Qaeda. The Americans see it as part of, whatever it
is - the War on Terror, or whatever. So
there is confusion, and that confusion will reflect itself within the UN in the
renewal of the mandate discussions before the end of the calendar year, which
are of crucial importance not least to us because it gives us a legitimacy
there both domestically in politics but, also, practically, on the ground for
things like running detention centres and so on. So how is it going to be internationalised - and it is going to
be highly politicised? Can I just raise
a question: it is not all going to run on the timetable of the renewal of the
next President of America; there is a debate that is going to involve beyond the
coalition of the willing and the Iraqi Government at that point. What is going to happen in terms of the
renewal of that UN mandate discussion before the end of the calendar year? Without it what are we going to do
then? If we do not get it are we going
to come out?
Mr Ainsworth: I am sorry, Dai, I am struggling to
understand what the question is. The
question is: do we need a renewed mandate?
Yes, we do. Can we operate
without one? No, we cannot. So we are operating, as are the Americans,
under a UN mandate that runs out on 31 December and we need a new mandate. All the rest of it is politics, is it
not? We have our own politics to deal
with, the Americans have their politics to deal with - that is not going to
change. However, we need a new UN
mandate and we need that renewed on the 31st.
Q169 Chairman: What will be the factors in helping to decide
whether we get it?
Mr Ainsworth: I would suppose the factors are going to be
the UN's view of what can be achieved ongoing, the necessity for our continued
presence and the continued powers that they have effectively given us. I do not know what more I can say, other
than those ought to be the factors.
Mr Havard: Can I ask you a direct question? In a sense, if General Mohan is successful,
if the economic engine of the country, which is the South East, is helped to be
secured - all the attention at the moment is about the nihilistic violence in
Baghdad - is it not the case that, in fact, these questions about what happens
in the South East are actually probably going to become more important in
determining what comes out of that process (or equally) than some of the things
that are happening in Baghdad?
Q170 Chairman: That is a "Yes" or "No" question.
Mr Ainsworth: A big part of the renewal process is going to
be the Iraqi Government and whether or not they see the need for renewal and
the method of renewal. If they want us
to continue to do the job that we are doing they are going to have to support
renewal. We hope they do see the
necessity for that.
Q171 Mr Havard: How we configure ourselves and what we do in
that intervening period - whether it is withdraw troops, come down, move out -
is taking on a different significance, is it not?
Mr Ainsworth: I think that is not what is steering our
policy at the moment. What is steering
our policy at the moment is our assessment of the situation on the ground in
the South East and whether or not we are in a position to hand over control of
that fourth province to the Iraqis.
That is at the forefront.
Everybody I talk to - that is what they are focused on.
Chairman: This is obviously a matter of great
importance to us.
Mr Havard: And General Dannatt's assessment of whether
it will "break" the Army.
Q172 Mr Jenkins: Minister, some simple questions on
equipment. How are the new Mastiffs
performing in theatre? Do you rate
them?
Mr Ainsworth: I had an opportunity to have a look at them
and talk to the people who were using them.
They appear to be a pretty impressive piece of kit to me, but, more
importantly, the people who are actually using them have a high degree of
confidence in them; they like what they have given; they feel that there is a
level of security there that is fitting to the job that they are being asked to
do. So, yes, they are very, very
enthusiastic about not only the Mastiff but the Bulldog as well.
Q173 Mr Jenkins: Do we have enough of them?
Mr Ainsworth: Every army would always like more, but we
have got this new kit into the field pretty quickly. I think that is recognised out there. Certainly we are able to use it for the operations that are
necessary.
Q174 Mr Jenkins: Every army wants more, as you said, but there
is a need to make sure they are provided with enough to do the job.
Mr Ainsworth: Yes.
Q175 Mr Jenkins: We can replace the soft-skin vehicles with
these vehicles when they are appropriate.
So we have to make sure there are enough of them.
Mr Ainsworth: Outside of those who involve themselves in
these issues there is a notion that there is a "one size fits all" and that
certain of our vehicles are beyond their sell-by date and have to be replaced
in their entirety. Now, as I have had
explained to me over the last few weeks and graphically on the ground by the
people who are doing these operations, that is not the case; they configure the
operations with the kit that they have got and they use the appropriate
vehicles in the appropriate circumstances.
So when we are sending convoys into Basra there is still a need for Land
Rovers to get in among the small streets in the city itself, but they are not
the front line of the approach. The
convoy is constructed in order to do the job that it is there to do. People feel - or they certainly said to me -
that they have the equipment to do that; they are able to successfully get into
the city, but, yes, they are still using snatch vehicles, and they are needed
for certain operations.
Q176 Mr Jenkins: That was a full answer, Minister. Very often when people talk a lot we have to
go back and have a look at what they are saying. I did ask you: do we have enough? What I wanted to make sure is that we are not configuring for the
equipment we have got, we are configuring for the job we are trying to
undertake. Whilst we accept the Army
has a long tradition of "putting up and doing with" equipment I want to be sure
that we are not exposing them to any greater risk than their normal job entails
by saying: "Yes, we do have enough, we believe, in theatre at the present
time".
Mr Ainsworth: What I got when I was out there was an
enormous amount of pleasure at the amount of new equipment that had been
provided over the period of time.
People were very pleased at what had been got to them. If you ask them whether or not they could do
with some more, I am certain that they would say that they could.
Mr Jenkins: You say the amount of equipment we have got
there is very appreciable. Good,
because we had a lot of trouble with our urgent operational requirements
procedure, did we not, to start with?
It took a few months before we could get up to speed. Are we satisfied now that it is performing
effectively? Before you tell me it is
(which I would expect, at any rate) would you like to send us a note on how you
assess and evaluate the effectiveness of it, how it was operating 18 months or
two years ago and what improvements have been made since then, so we can
actually see a quantifiable assessment of how effective it has become.
Chairman: This is the UORs?
Q177 Mr Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Ainsworth: Just because we are able to raise a UOR and
raise a UOR in pretty short order does not mean to say that, hey presto, off
the shelf is the stuff that we want there and available immediately. Various stuff has to be procured, it has to
be found and it has to be bought and shipped out to theatre. Everything that I am being told is that that
process is running reasonably smoothly and that we are able to get the kit out
to our people that they need.
Everything I saw on the ground was that they have the kit they need;
that there has been a big improvement over a period of time and they are very
satisfied with the progress that has been made.
Q178 Mr Jenkins: As I said, that is the answer you would give
me - I knew that would be the answer.
Mr Ainsworth: So why did you ask!
Q179 Mr Jenkins: The question I asked you is: I believe the
situation has improved, but how do you, as a department, evaluate the
performance of raising these orders and delivering them, and how has it
improved over time? That is all I am
asking. If there has been an
improvement you must be able to say with confidence it has delivered - prove it
in figures. That is what I am asking,
so I would be very grateful for a note.
Mr Ainsworth: You would like some figures?
Mr Jenkins: Yes.
The next one is helicopter availability.
Q180 Chairman: Before you move on to helicopters, Minister,
when we were in Basra a couple of weeks ago we were told that the senior
officers there were very satisfied indeed with the equipment that they had had.
Mr Ainsworth: I got exactly the same.
Mr Jenkins: Did you want to congratulate the ----
Chairman: I just wanted to repeat what we had been
told.
Q181 Mr Jenkins: I made no assertion as to any different! Proof of the helicopter availability. We get constant comments about the fact that
we have a shortage of helicopter availability, which is denied by the Department. How does the Department evaluate the
helicopter availability we have got? It
must be a concern to them that we are using up our equipment at a far faster
rate than was envisaged when we first purchased them. There must be other purchases in the pipeline. How many helicopters do we need to replace
the ones we have burned out now? What
is available? Can you do us an assessment
of the availability on demand rather than the availability monitored by the
amount of crews we have got, by the amount of helicopters we have got, or by
the maintenance regime it has to undertake?
What is the gap between those three and the actual demand required by
our services?
Mr Ainsworth: The first thing to say is that forces out in
operating areas have the first call on resources. Of the helicopters we have got, obviously, we want the maximum
number out there, in the field, supporting our troops. However, that does lead to pressures
elsewhere and does mean: do we have sufficient kit at home to maintain adequate
training programmes to bring on crews, and the rest of it? So it is not as simple as: do the troops in
Iraq have enough helicopters? There are
all kinds of other pressures. If you
want us to do a note on that then we will give you a note. Pressures do arise in other areas, not
necessarily in the operating ----
Q182 Mr Jenkins: I did not think it was simple; I think it is
very, very complex and very difficult.
Mr Ainsworth: I thought you said you were asking simple
questions!
Q183 Mr Jenkins: I will tell you one thing: never listen to a
politician. If you tell me that we are
holding helicopters back for training in this country and denying our frontline
troops the use of helicopters, then that would be a most serious - I do not
think you meant that at all.
Mr Ainsworth: That is not what I am telling you at all; I
am saying that the pressures on the helicopter fleet tend to come out in areas
other than the operating area. That is
our first priority, and meeting their needs is the first priority. That means that we wind up with problems
elsewhere - which should not be denied.
On an ongoing basis, the ability to continue to train and to bring
people on is important.
Mr Jenkins: Of course, and if you can give us a note on
that we would be very grateful.
Q184 Chairman: Minister, these are questions to which I do
not expect you to have an answer because I did not give you any prior warning
of them. Last year we travelled in
Warriors into Basra Palace and the heat in those Warriors was quite
phenomenal. We were told last year that
the medical personnel out there were extremely concerned that there would be a
heat related fatality that was nothing to do with enemy action. This year we met the helicopter crews that
manned the casualty evacuations. They
told us that they had had a lot of work to do relating to heat casualties. I wonder whether there is some trade-off
between the amount of money that one could spend on putting some air
conditioning into some of the vehicles that we are providing compared with the
cost of evacuating people through heat related casualties, quite apart from the
fact that the better conditions we put our Armed Forces into the better
management of people there would be and the fairer it would be to the people
who are putting their lives on the line on a daily basis. I wonder if you could do us something, when
you answer the questions from Brian Jenkins, about that.
Mr Ainsworth: Okay.
Chairman: I do not know whether there are any further
questions. There will be some questions
that we want to ask you in writing about detainees, because there are some very
important issues we want to pursue on that.
No further questions. Then the
session is over. Many thanks.
