Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
160-179)
Dr Lee Willett and Mr Jason Alderwick
21 JANUARY 2010
Q160 Chairman: I think we were told last
week it was up to the high water mark, I am not sure whether there
are any cones along it, but I suspect we know where that is. Perhaps
we could start off again keeping on that general area of what
is your overall assessment of the EU Operation Atalanta, the strengths
and weaknesses, and what can be done to improve the operation's
effectiveness, although as you will see, we will come on to more
specifically some of the very specific issues around resources
and capability shortfalls later on.
Mr Alderwick: Sir, I am happy to start on that
one. I think again an important point to bear in mind is that
this operation has effectively only been going now for 12 months,
and a lot of progress has been made. By all means it is not perfect,
but actually, in the context of where we were looking at in terms
of maritime force intervention prior to Atalanta and the other
Coalition Maritime Forces in the region, activity and piratical
activity was effectively going on completely unchecked. So we
are in a situation now where at least there are at least several
task groups operating in the region. The first Task Group obviously
that we are focusing on primarily is Atalanta, but we must remember
the other international contributions being made through NATO
and Coalition Maritime Forces as well as other third states that
are contributing outside of that force architecture. So I think
Atalanta initially has a very good story to tell, and events in
the last 12 months have shown that EU Member States have been
willing to contribute significant naval forces and command infrastructure
to enable a relatively effective counter-piracy effort in the
region. I think one of the main aspects of the success has been
the fact that it is a fairly flat structured command organisation,
so given the other military forces in the region that are involved
in fairly detailed and bureaucratic institutional processes, in
terms of decision-making, it is relatively straightforward in
the EU context and in the Atalanta context for decisions to be
made. The command structure is quite flat and able to respond
fairly rapidly, so that is definitely a strength of the operation.
Arguably one indication of the success of the operation has been
the displacement of piracy activity. Predominantly, attacks were
concentrated in the Gulf of Aden, but once the maritime forces
within that region were galvanised, what you saw is increased
activity displaced away from the Gulf of Aden further into the
Somali Basin. Now that has caused a separate tactical and operational
issue, but nonetheless, it is the case that counter piracy efforts
are being effective and having an effect in that area. And this
is despite the increase in the number of attacks that have taken
place. So whilst you can say yes, the number of ships that have
been taken is broadly the same between this year and last year,
with no measurable in numerical terms of statistics reductions,
but what you can say is the number of attempted attacks which
have been successfully thwarted has significantly increased. That
is as a consequence of both the military forces in the region
and shipowners, operators and other elements within the commercial
organisation really taking the issue of piracy and transits through
that region very seriously, and because of that again we are seeing
a reduction in successful pirated events. One final element I
would add is the EU is able to get to engage and has been engaged
in the region through individual Member States and as a collective
entity politically, as well as militarily, whereas other organisations
do not enjoy the political relationships that the EU does have
in the region, so that is, if you like, a force multiplier outside
of the military context, where success can be made.
Q161 Chairman: Would you say that is,
if you like, without the cliche, the added value area of the EU
operation, in comparison maybe with the others?
Mr Alderwick: Certainly. If you were to compare
Coalition Maritime Forces, I think that is where you could apply
that, or indeed NATO, although there are individual Member States
within NATO obviously that are EU Member States that are engaged,
but there is more added value, I think, on the EU side, because
of the softer elements of EU policy, rather than being seen as
a purely military body, as NATO is. I think the EU has been very
good in organising Status of Forces Agreements within the region,
so that has been quite good as a force multiplier, so they are
able to operate out of Djibouti, able to operate out of other
areas, I think they are using ports in Oman as well to support
operations, so again Status of Forces Agreements has been an interesting
way of improving, if you like, their ability to operate in the
region. Whilst I think we will come on to this at a later date,
they have also successfully negotiated the legal framework from
which to start prosecuting and giving due process to pirates that
they have captured, although I am sure we will discuss that in
a bit more detail later on, so I will not dwell on it here. My
final point would be that I think the Atalanta mission itself
has made a very strong effort to make this a comprehensive and
inter-agency approach, whereas other force elements involved have
not been as front footed or as willing, if you like, to engage
shipowners, operators, the Chamber of Shipping and the IMO. These
are the key elements that you need to bring on board if you really
truly want to start addressing this issue. I think I will stop
there.
Dr Willett: Just a couple of things to add if
I may, My Lord Chairman. It is making a difference, and I think
it is doing so in many different ways. One only has to recall
13 or 14 months ago, on the front page of the BBC website, every
day there was a story of a new attack, an update, in fact that
was changing even perhaps more than once a day. You will not find
that issue there on the front page now. It does not mean the issue
has gone away, but what it means is that the operation is doing
something to address this matter politically, and I think there
is an argument that is having a degree of political success therefore,
it is being seen to be doing something, as well as providing a
broader presence in the region. There is a very interesting debate
about who started it and why, there was the World Food Programme
escorting going on beforehand, and there are questions as to why
the EU wanted to stand up the operation, was it for grand strategic
political reasons in the region, there is always global tension
between the French and the US about who is doing what and why,
so you have a grand strategic power play out there between the
French, the Americans and others as to having to be there, having
to be seen to be there. So that is one important element to bear
in mind, but while there is that tension, there is also the fact
that this has brought significant political unity to navies and
nations across the world. You may have the EU force, you may have
the NATO force, you may have CMF, and you may, of course, have
all the other nations that are there for individual purposes,
the French, the Chinese, the Indians, etc, but the reality of
the fact of them actually being there when they have to be in
the same water space, trying to do the same thing in the same
water space, is they have to start to get on. Naval forces have
always, because of the open nature of the sea, had to co-operate
when they are out there, and that is what they do, and they have
a very good reputation for so doing, but bringing nations like
the Russians or the Chinese into that equation, because they have
to be seen to be there for their own political reasons, has meant
that you have this opportunity to be able to increase co-operation
amongst naval forces, and therefore increase the global benefit
of what they are doing. I think another important fact to bear
in mind is this helps to increase confidence in the shipping industry
that something is being done at least. If one looks at the reasons
why the EUNAVFOR may have been stood up in the first place, there
is an argument that concerns the commercial shipping world about
the threat meant that somebody from government, i.e. from the
naval point of view, had to be seen to be doing something. There
were very high level concerns amongst some big shipping companies
about what was happening, and there was talk of having to reroute
around the Horn, etc. That has not really happened, because NAVFOR,
the NATO group and CMF are now focusing on it and doing something,
so it has given that confidence back to the shipping industry.
But of course, when one looks at the Gulf of Aden and compares
it to the Somali Basin and Indian Ocean region, if you imagine
a balloon and you push down on one side of the balloon, it bulges
up in another, the balloon effect, and until you change the ability
of the governments as a whole to do something ashore and pop that
balloon, then the air will still be in the balloon, if you like.
Q162 Lord Chidgey: Thank you, gentlemen.
That was a very interesting overview, so to speak, but I think
it is a good time to get on to specifics particularly. You have
seen the questions, and I would like to ask on behalf of the Committee:
specifically in your view, what is your assessment of the UK's
approach and military contribution to Operation Atalanta? How
does that specifically differ from other Member States that are
contributing to the operation, and perhaps most importantly, has
the UK and the EU underestimated the problem of piracy in recent
years? I want to add on a supplementary before we start, if I
may, to Mr Alderwick, who told us he spent eight years as a warfare
officer in the Royal Navy. I am not a naval person, but I understand
that it is one of the most challenging and sought-after positions
to hold as a Royal Naval officer, warfare, fighting the ship.
Now I want you to perhaps give us a little view, from that perspective,
of how you think we are doing in this combatting piracy, and the
Royal Navy's contribution, hands-on approach to it, what can we
do better?
Mr Alderwick: Sure. Firstly, I would say that
I would qualify my naval career—I was a Warfare Officer,
but I was not a Principal Warfare Officer (PWO), so I was involved
as a Gunnery Officer on board, so I was involved in fighting the
ship, and have transitted that area many times. However, I think
I have a reasonably good understanding, if you like, of the operational
picture that most of the in-theatre commanders now would be facing.
I think firstly, I would say it is a very complex environment
that they have to operate in. You have got effectively the second
or third busiest choke point in the world, you have over 25,000
very large commercial operators transiting that region throughout
the year, and on top of that, you have got a myriad of local fishing
activity taking place in the Gulf of Aden, specifically off the
Yemeni coast and off the northern Somali coast as well, so it
is a very complex operating environment. What we have seen is
the initial efforts to organise this activity, if you can imagine,
two years ago, we were in a situation where all shipping was effectively
funnelling through the straits of the Gulf of Aden, and now what
you are seeing is that they have effectively corralled that shipping,
too transit, along a single transit route, which they are then
able to effectively police and control. Now again, this transit
corridor, it was called the Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA),
but it has since been the Internationally Recognised Transit (IRTC),
is exactly that, it filters the ships through this pipeline and
as a consequence they are easier to control. It is a series of
group transits that take place and not convoys, and given the
limited assets that are available to the commander in theatre,
he is then able to take a far more pro-active approach in surveillance
activities and disrupt activities without having to look further
outside of his field of vision, if you like, what the other commercial
ship operators are doing. So they have taken control of the commercial
sector to the degree of at least co-ordinating their transiting
times, and then they are using their assets to best effect. Now
if you speak to anyone in theatre, I am sure they will say to
you, "We need more assets, we need more platforms",
and that is a legitimate call and cry that I think is very reasonable.
I did not get to discuss some of the criticisms, if you like,
or shortfalls in operational effectiveness, but one thing you
could say is that contributing a frigate or a destroyer without
a helicopter, for example, is pretty poor, in effect, the aviation
is a key enabler, and what that will allow you to do is to engage
in intelligence gathering and maritime patrol activities at greater
distance from where you are on your vessel, and it is a great
force multiplier. So if you are contributing a frigate, at least
make sure it has got aviation facilities and a helicopter to do
that.
Q163 Lord Chidgey: And they do not have
that?
Mr Alderwick: Some of the contributing states
have been unable at times to produce aviation assets.
Q164 Lord Chidgey: Is that because their
frigates or whatever do not have the facility to carry a helicopter,
or because they have not got it on?
Mr Alderwick: I think in most cases, they would
have the aviation facilities, but not the helicopter, they cannot
spare the helicopter, so that has happened. Not in the UK's case,
I will say. If you look specifically at the UK contribution, I
mean, clearly the UK was placed in the frame as the lead nation
on this, in terms of providing the leadership, which the UK has
done. The OHQ, the operational command is in Northwood. Effectively,
a lot of the initial staffing, certainly in the earlier days,
was drawn from the various what are termed battle staffs in the
RN command organisation, so a lot of UK effort went into fulfilling
the staff positions, and these have now been broadened out across
respective EU contributing states. So the UK has, I think, had
a strong command role clearly, and it has had an operational role.
The continued operational role is open to discussion and debate,
because there has not always necessarily been a UKRN frigate or
destroyer dedicated to Operation Atalanta. What we have seen or
what I have seen are effectively units being cycled through that
region because there are other strategic demands and military
and naval tasks for our forces beyond the counter-piracy issue
in the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin. We have military forces
operating in the Arabian Gulf, for example, and the UK has force
commitments there, so we have not been able to generate a full
platform all of the time for that specific mission, and I think
that is where there is an argument for increased assets.
Dr Willett: Just to add a couple of points to
that if I may, I think one of the reasons why the UK's prominent
position as the framework nation for this was welcomed was because
of the credibility and reputation of the Royal Navy, to be able
to put on an operation like this, and to stand it up. It was stood
up very quickly, it was stood up in 10 weeks, I think it was,
which for something of this size and this significance is quite
an achievement. With regard to the headquarters, of course, yes,
the headquarters staff for the Royal Navy's own operations and
the NATO operations in Northwood are already established, and
therefore siting the EUNAVFOR there made sense, but also basing
it in London, where it is near NATO operations on the same site,
it is in London with the IMO, it is in London which is a significant
global hub for the global shipping community, tends to make a
lot of sense politically to have it in the same city, if you like.
Of course, the UK has had a credible start to the operation with
senior 2 Stars Admiral Jones and Admiral Hudson, very credible
naval officers doing a very good job. I should imagine as the
operation goes on, there will be some debate as to whether the
EUNAVFOR command billet should become a rotational post, and I
think one of the problems from the UK's point of view, as Mr Alderwick
mentioned, is the fact that the Royal Navy does not always have
the assets available to contribute in terms of a ship, and when
it does have one available, the added complication it has is from
a political point of view, when you have the NATO force going
through, when you have the US-led CMF there as well, there is
sometimes a tension that the Royal Navy faces as to which of the
horses, if you like, it should back, in terms of where it should
place its asset, because there are political reasons why some
say it should go with the CMF forces, or with the NAVFOR, or with
the NATO group. So there is a complex political challenge for
the UK when deciding with whom to place the one asset that it
may have every now and again, where to put that.
Q165 Lord Chidgey: Just quickly if I
may, as a supplemental, it is quite intriguing, you speak with
great authority, and it is actually quite depressing in a way
because of the lack of availability of the assets; it is even
more depressing to think of the current debates going on about
the Strategic Defence Review which is coming up later this year,
I imagine, and the implications of cuts in the Royal Navy on this
particular operation. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Dr Willett: If one was to believe some of the
comments that one sees in the press about cancelling the aircraft
carriers and making £5 billion available to pay for more
surface ships, to revive what has been referred to as the Nelsonian
spirit of having a Royal Navy warship in every fathom of water,
I think that is a false argument. Notwithstanding the current
state of the national finances, a £5 billion saving on the
aircraft carriers would go to line the bottom of that pit, and
you will not suddenly find £5 billion available to be spending
on more destroyers and frigates. I think where the issue from
the Royal Navy's point of view with regard to the Strategic Defence
Review lies for surface ships that could carry out this kind of
task, is ensuring that the numbers of surface ships that we have
at the moment, around about 25, does not decrease, and the challenge
there from the Ministry of Defence's point of view is doing what
it can to make the next generation of surface ships, future surface
combatants, that will be the workhorses, the greyhounds, whichever
analogy you want to use, affordable, so that the MoD or the Royal
Navy does not run into the very easy obstacle politically of having
very expensive ships that the Government or the Treasury say,
well, you cannot afford that many of them. So there is a strong
argument that when you have a requirement for conducting operations
like this, lower end maritime security tasks, not just piracy,
but a range of other things, there is an argument that alongside
the Type 45, for example, that is a very high end destroyer, and
alongside a number of the future surface combatants that will
be there for that high end capability provision, that you want
to have sufficient numbers of assets that can carry out maritime
security tasks around the world. My final point on that though
is that one of the concerns that the Navy in operational terms
does have at the moment though is that requirements for operations
like this in Somalia do risk degrading the Navy's ability to carry
out high-end tasks. When you combine that with the argument that
the Royal Navy should reduce its high-end assets to make some—the
terrible term that is used is cheap-as-chips ships—to deploy
to Somalia, that creates risks from the UK's point of view in
the longer term for issues other than counter-piracy, when we
have to plan for future scenarios that we cannot predict while
risking, degrading our high-end war fighting capability at a critical
time.
Q166 Lord Chidgey: Cutting the number
from twelve to six of the T45s does not really help, does it?
Dr Willett: There are obviously particular reasons
for that scenario.
Chairman: Can I just intervene? We cannot
do a UK defence review in this particular area, but important
points in terms of this particular operation.
Q167 Lord Anderson of Swansea: A little
point of clarification for Mr Alderwick: you spoke of the narrow
transit channel and said these were not convoys but group travel.
I would like to know the precise difference, and presumably does
that mean if the ships are travelling together that their speed
is determined by the speed of the slowest?
Mr Alderwick: No, the opposite in fact. Speed
is an important factor. What the analysis has led towards is effectively
within the IRTC, the transit corridor, is a group transit system,
and transit times are promulgated to vessels based on their service
speed, and this is set basically at the highest speeds that those
vessels can go. What they do is the slowest ones start first,
the fastest ones start last, and they reach a singularity—not
a singularity, but a set point in space and time, they transit
the pirate area that has been determined to be where most of the
attacks have occurred in the day, they transit that area at night,
because at night, it is widely recognised that the pirates do
not effectively try and board you and conduct their activities
at night, so they are minimising, if you like, the risks during
the transit time. Then at daybreak, when the pirates are up and
out, dawn being sort of the traditional time to launch your attack,
what you find is that all the commercial shipping have arrived
at that point, that dawn point, pretty much together, so they
are grouped together at that point in space and time, and then
your maritime forces are effectively not sitting off the starboard
bow of the container ships in convoy, they are away from that
group, looking for the pirates, and actively trying to interdict,
disrupt and deter at distance. So you do not wait for the problem
to come to you, they are moving towards the problem. On the point
of convoy systems, there just simply would not be enough assets
to convoy the traffic that is going through there effectively,
indeed there are recorded incidents of vessels being taken that
are in a convoy system, where as you said the low and slow one
is dragging behind the rest of the convoy and is taken, so that
does happen.
Dr Willett: A couple of minor additions, if
I may. It is my understanding that in terms of the IRTC in the
Gulf of Aden, as Mr Alderwick rightly points out, the idea is
for those ships to appear out of the darkness into the most risky
area—at that gate, if you like, at the end of the corridor,
in a way that they can then be best escorted from that point on,
and the two ships that have been taken since the IRTC has been
in operation were ones that were not operating as they had been
required to do, and had slowed down in particular. The issue of
convoys, of course, has been raised, and there are one or two
nations that are continuing to convoy their own ships, and particularly
in the Indian Ocean, and of course, the Indian Ocean is a much
different situation because of its size compared to the Gulf of
Aden. The method, the modus operandi, if you like, for the Indian
Ocean and the Somali Basin area is to use intelligence led operations
to assess where the risk is and the threat to a particular ship
and then try to cover that ship. There is not the number of assets,
and in particular, it is a much larger size, so they cannot consider
an IRTC concept for the Somali Basin area.
Q168 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Mr Alderwick
made the point about the use of helicopters; can you just confirm
with me that if the Royal Navy use one of their frigates with
a Merlin helicopter on it, this would give them a range of 400
miles round that ship, which, of course, would be a fantastic
force multiplier in terms of gathering intelligence?
Mr Alderwick: Absolutely. However, I cannot
confirm with you the operational radius of the aircraft.
Q169 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Is that
because you do not know it, or because you think it is—
Mr Alderwick: I could get you the answer, but
I would not want to misquote myself now by agreeing with you,
but it would certainly be several hundred miles of operational
radius, and more to the point, it is the ISR equipment on board
the helicopter, the radar, the electro-optical equipment, that
is the force multiplier, being able to see a small skiff at significant
range again which would be classified here, but at significant
range, and see pretty much what is in that skiff as well. That
is what is important, because target discrimination, if you have
anything up to 100 small contacts in a confined area, to all intents
and purposes, they are fishing, you have to be able to try and
readily identify the piratical activity, and that is very, very
difficult.
Dr Willett: From a technology point of view
too, it has its limitations, because it cannot address the issues
of the way in which the Somali fishermen and pirates work. Many
of them carry weapons on board their skiffs anyway, even if they
have no intention of conducting piratical activity, so you may
have a helicopter with the best systems in the world on, which
will pick up an AK47, for example, but it does not mean that that
skiff or those therein are imminently intending or intending at
all to conduct pirate activity. It is understanding the way in
which the society works, and the way the individuals work, and
one of the gaps, if you like, going back to a previous question,
is a lack of human intelligence in the region to understand what
is happening. Again, that is not something that the Navy itself
can do much about, but it is something that needs to be borne
in mind, that the technology itself does have its limits.
Q170 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: It has to
be said that fishermen do not carry ladders for scaling the sides
of ships.
Mr Alderwick: No, but they do carry grappling
hooks and ropes which can scale ships as well, so what they would
use as a primitive anchor could easily be used to try and board
a ship as well. It is very difficult to discriminate.
Q171 Lord Inge: You have given us in
great detail the positive impact that the operations have had.
Could you just say what impact that is having on the pirates'
tactics, and what capabilities they are using, and how they have
changed their tactics; has there been a really serious reduction
in the amount of successful operations?
Mr Alderwick: There has been a really serious
reduction in successful operations, I think the success rate has
been reduced by at least 70% of attempted attacks, and that is
an industry/military benefit, I think. So there has been a serious
reduction, absolutely.
Q172 Lord Inge: I am more interested
in their changes of tactics.
Mr Alderwick: In terms of change of tactics,
I mentioned earlier about, if you like, that the impacts in the
Gulf of Aden have dispersed the activity, so it has forced the
pirates now to operate further offshore, which involves greater
risk. It has not necessarily resulted in a reduction in the number
of vessels being taken, but it means now that a lot of the activity
is being transferred to the Somali Basin, especially during the
monsoon periods, when the monsoon periods are transitioning, and
the sea states are more permissive to conduct boarding operations.
In terms of the tactics they are using, if you read certain sources,
you will say, oh, they are highly sophisticated operators; evidence
to date and certainly all the people that I speak to that are
involved directly in this operation, say that is simply not the
case. This is not sophisticated. It is a sophisticated criminal
network in terms of the piracy and the ransom payments, in terms
of how the clans may organise themselves to conduct the activity,
but conducting the physical operation of boarding the ships et
cetera is pretty basic: it is grappling hooks, pilot ladders.
The small arms that they are using, there is no change; I mean,
some of the arms that have been confiscated and destroyed, frankly,
you are taking your life into your own hands if you were to use
the RPG yourself, the rocket propelled grenades. Indeed, the material
state of the equipment they are using is very poor. That said,
the skiffs that they are using, what has been found is if they
are operating further offshore, they will operate with additional
engines, with more powerful engines, so they are getting better,
if you like, at operating further offshore, but in terms of fundamentally
changing their tactics, other than going into the Somali Basin,
it is pretty much the same techniques that they were using two
or three years ago.
Q173 Lord Inge: Are you confident that
our intelligence is as good and well co-ordinated as it should
be?
Mr Alderwick: I think Dr Willett has touched
on the lack of human intelligence that we have there. There is
a severe shortage, I would say, of linguists as well. What is
key is getting your boarding parties, the boarding capabilities
you have on your ships, getting them off your ships to engage
with the fishing community. If you are not linguistically qualified,
if you do not speak Somali, that can be fairly difficult. I think
specifically looking at the Atalanta Operation, there is no intelligence
cell, there is no intelligence organisation that the EU has that
can push direct military intelligence out. The operational intelligence
that has accumulated on scene is examined back at the HQ and action
is taken appropriately. I would say that looking at the wider
forces, the NATO forces and the Coalition Maritime Forces, that
certainly in a NATO context have a greater intelligence gathering
and analytical capability, what you find is pragmatically, actions
are being taken to ensure that intelligence is getting there.
It may not be institutionally agreed, but pragmatism and military-to-military
relationships here is what is playing a role, so they are getting
intelligence, but not to the fullest extent that we would like.
Dr Willett: May I just add to that very quickly?
One would always hope that intelligence and information sharing
amongst the navies and amongst the various coalitions could be
better, and I think maybe it is the case that there are long-standing
political and cultural issues, divorced from just this particular
circumstance, that mean that information sharing amongst the nations,
as opposed to the navies, is perhaps not as good as it needs to
be in the context of how much better the situation could be if
the information sharing was more open. So there is a little concern
there, I think, that it is not as open as it could be.
Q174 Lord Inge: That is surprising, given
that we are talking about tactical intelligence and not strategic
intelligence.
Dr Willett: I think at a naval level, at a very
functional level, in terms of operational place and time when
something has to happen, the navies are finding that it is incumbent
upon themselves to work together and share information. Indeed,
there is now an internet-based programme that they use for sharing
information that employs internet banking style security, that
all sorts of nations are now involved in using, even the Chinese,
to share information. But at a national level perhaps, there may
still be some wider political sensitivities about sharing information
between NATO, the EU and the CMF. May I just go back very briefly
to the previous question about the tactics? There are two important
things to bear in mind: one is the increase of motherships that
we have seen, where the pirates are taking other vessels, dhows,
fishing vessels, and in particular recently a cargo ship that
they used then as a platform for other attacks. This enables them
to go further out, and if you look at the geography of it, there
are cases where they are now operating closer to the Indian shores
than they are to the Somali shores. The level of violence, to
add to Mr Alderwick's point, is the one tactic that is significant
for the pirates, because the level of violence when they start
these attacks is very significant, and not something that your
average seafarer or person driving a yacht would be necessarily
prepared for. But an important point on the tactics point of view
is the other side of the coin, in what is being done to inform
the shipping community of what tactics they should use, both in
terms of best practice when they are preparing to transit the
region and best practice when they are actually there and they
are at risk of a pirate attack. How they sail the ship, the way
in which they manoeuvre it, the speed at which they manoeuvre
it, the speed at which they sail, what they can do in terms of
stopping grappling hooks getting over the side, hoses, wire, et
cetera. So there is a real emphasis amongst the navies in working
with the shipping community to explain to them and work with them
on what is best practice at a tactical level to stop the boardings.
Q175 Lord Sewel: Could we just very briefly
return to the matter of factors affecting the probability of a
successful pirate attack? I have taken from what you have said
that if you go through the transit corridor in group travel, the
probability for successful attack is low; if you freelance, it
is high.
Mr Alderwick: Higher certainly, but proportionately—
Q176 Lord Sewel: Can you put some numbers
on the difference?
Mr Alderwick: No, I cannot, not specifically
for those that are not registered in terms of what the statistical
average would be in terms of the increase. I can only go on, if
I look at the instance where as Dr Willett said, specific instance
of recent piracy events, you find that the owners and operators
that have been taken have been in non-compliance in some way to
the IRTC transit guidelines.
Q177 Lord Sewel: We will come back to
that later.
Dr Willett: A widely used figure of how many
ships do not choose to enter into the umbrella offered by the
naval forces is about 25%, so that is quite a significant number,
but then when you look at the numbers using it, and the fact that
only two ships have been taken since the IRTC has been established,
that shows how well the IRTC is working.
Q178 Lord Swinfen: You just about answered
a question that I was going to ask later on, but you have been
talking about the EU and NATO; how about Russia, China and India,
who I gather also have warships in the area? Are they also in
the intelligence circle, or are they operating on their own, and
the corollary of this, how about the pirates' own intelligence?
What do we know about that? What are they doing to find out what
nice plump fat ships are passing through their area?
Mr Alderwick: On the intelligence side, there
are some intelligence failings, and certainly the old rule of
need-to-know needs to be changed to need-to-share, particularly
with the third states that are not fully integrated in any command
structure. What you are finding with the Indians, the Chinese
and others is they are making themselves available to support
operations that Atalanta are conducting, if they are not engaged
in conducting at that time a specific convoy of their own flag
state vessels. Also what you will find is that those states generally
do not have any objections to a vessel requesting to join their
convoy, if they are able to keep up as well. Intelligence sharing
and communications within the operation: we were really hampered
when Atalanta initially stood up, I remember speaking to people
involved in the operation on a mobile phone, so that was largely
unsecure; e-mail traffic was being conducted on Yahoo accounts,
that kind of thing. It has moved on massively since then, but
I am talking literally within the first 24 or 36 hours of standing
up the operation. As Dr Willett says, now they are working with
secure chat facilities across all contributing members, not just
Atalanta members, but the Chinese have it, the Indians have it,
the Russians I believe do have it now, but some of these nations
do not have the capability to go live on the internet 24/7, as
our ships do. So there are difficulties, but things are much more
improved.
Q179 Lord Swinfen: What about the pirates'
intelligence?
Mr Alderwick: Their intelligence; well, again,
I would say it is a bit like a sweet shop, frankly. There are
25,000 ships going through the Gulf of Aden every year, they only
have to sit offshore by two miles and they can see what is on
offer, and select and hamper and harass as required, so I do not
think they are running a sophisticated intelligence operation.
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