Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
Rear Admiral Philip Jones, RN
12 FEBRUARY 2009
Q20 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Would you
give us an update on the way the shortfalls are being tackled?
Rear Admiral Jones: Yes.
Lord Anderson of Swansea: Perhaps you
can do that in writing, Chairman.
Q21 Chairman: Do you think you can deal
with that, Admiral, in a short way?
Rear Admiral Jones: Yes, I think so. I hope
so anyway, if it is to your satisfaction, my Lord, and I hope
it will be. We have now established about a 20 strong force headquarters
support area in Djibouti which enables logistic support to the
task force to be generated from that site, so any ship that needs
logistic support, both there and in any port in the area, can
draw on that expertise. We have a contract now in order to provide
food and fuel and spare parts and personnel support through that
headquarters support area, and that is now sustainable in some
new-build office accommodation and with some established communication
infrastructure to link back both to the operational headquarters
at Northwood and to the force headquarters at sea.
Q22 Chairman: And hospital ships?
Rear Admiral Jones: That is an area that we
do not have the capability for yet. We are aware that, in order
to do sustained and potentially difficult counter-piracy operations,
there is a risk of incurring some casualties—either causing
them by pirates that we are deterring and disrupting or by, indeed,
being subjected to attack by pirates against our own personnel.
We have first-line medical support available in all of the ships
at sea, and in one or two cases that is fairly sophisticated but
it does not quite reach the level of surgical intervention, a
theatre operating capability, blood supplies and emergency medivac
that we would ideally want for high intensity counter-piracy.
Again, some of those capabilities are available in other elements
of the coalition forces there that we may be able to use, but
my biggest concern is the breadth of area we are operating in.
We may have that facility at sea, it may be available to us, but
it may be several hundred, if not a thousand, miles away from
where the incident happens and it is being able to connect quickly
to that sort of support.
Q23 Lord Anderson of Swansea: A question
on costing. How are the overall costs of the operation allocated
between those states which participate and those which do not,
and since much of the benefit goes not just to the World Food
Programme but to commercial shipping, do insurers or the ships
owners themselves make any contribution to the overall costs?
Rear Admiral Jones: The establishment of a cost
structure for this particular EU operation has been, I think,
remarkably simple—certainly those of my fellow EU op-commanders
who run land operations tell me that—because there is a
very significantly smaller amount of logistic infrastructure that
you need to support a maritime operation, and so the establishment
of a correct budgetary figure for what is EU common costs has
been fairly easy to define. That is based on the time-honoured
principle that any nation supporting a coalition maritime effort
effectively carries the cost for the routine operation and day-to-day
running costs of that ship. That is true for coalition maritime
forces, it is true for NATO as well, and so each Member State
contributing a ship, effectively, pays for the running costs of
that ship. We have identified one or two special areas where,
clearly, additional costs that are attributable solely to this
operation can be captured and covered by common costs. That includes,
for example, extra diversions that the flagship has to do to support
the work of the force commander.
Q24 Lord Anderson of Swansea: So no-one
has a free ride?
Rear Admiral Jones: No.
Q25 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: How much
are we talking about there?
Rear Admiral Jones: I think the common cost
figure for the whole operation, for the whole year, is in the
region of eight million euros.
Q26 Chairman: I think I am going to have
to move on. Was there anything else?
Rear Admiral Jones: There was a second part
to your question. At the moment, there is no charge made for any
level of protection and support and escort that we are offering,
and I think that is a policy we would very much like to stick
to, it would be just too difficult to try and implement, and I
think, although the EU have looked at that, as have other forces
operating there, it is not a policy I can well define.
Q27 Lord Inge: You have touched on command
and control up to a point. Bearing in mind how many nations are
involved and everything else, how would you try and improve the
command and control, because they will get more sophisticated
as we get more sophisticated and you will need a command and control
that is responsive and reactive and does not go to sleep at night,
for example.
Rear Admiral Jones: Yes. I do think long and
hard about this. Looking at the reality of the forces that are
conducting counter-piracy in the area, I think it is probably
unrealistic to expect that any greater degree of fusion of the
command and control structure is going to happen. There is a very
clear command and control structure for coalition maritime forces
linking back through their task force commanders into Bahrain
with a three-star US commander at their head. We have very strong
links to that structure, as strong as I think they are going to
be. There is a UK deputy to that coalition maritime commander
who I work very closely with and we share liaison officers between
the two headquarters, and the same would be true if NATO came
back and operated in the region again. I do not think it is realistic
politically to expect any closer linkage of the command and control
than that. With many of the other navies operating on their own
in the area—the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the
Malaysians, the Saudis—they have come with a clear mandate
to work on their own; their principal task is to protect their
own flagships. They are interested in sharing information, they
are interested in pooling capability and there is a fairly significant
degree of what we call tactical deconfliction taking place between
those operations on a daily basis: the ships are talking; the
commanders are comparing operational patterns. My sense is we
have taken that co-ordination about as far as we are going to
get it politically, but I think it is more than enough for operations
to take place, and I will give you an example of why I think that
is sufficient. We are already seeing evidence of reactions to
pirate attacks, which can involve, for example, an Op Atalanta
maritime patrol aircraft being the first fixed-wing aircraft on
the scene to establish a degree of surveillance and co-ordination.
There may be a helicopter airborne from a coalition ship which
becomes the first aircraft on the scene; the nearest warship may
be Russian or Chinese. We have already seen evidence of co-ordination
across those three force elements. With communications and understanding
of operations, it has enabled successful counter-piracy to happen.
So my sense is we have got sufficient co-ordination between the
different task forces and ships at sea, we have got a degree of
recognition of the wider strategic picture between the different
strategic headquarters and the sense is we are not going to go
any further. What I think we will see is, above that, a much greater
ownership by the United Nations Contract Group on security off
the coast of Somalia, which is now beginning to assert itself,
and that brings together not only all of the Western nations involved
in this, all of the regional nations, but also the organisations
engaged in this too—NATO and the coalition—and they
are looking at how to tackle the wider problem of piracy, not
just at sea but in Somalia itself, on a fairly long and complicated
mandate with many different lines of development, and I think
that is welcome.
Q28 Lord Inge: It is, is it? I am very
suspicious of the United Nations when they are in command and
control positions. Are the UN looking to have a command and control
responsibility, if they get involved, or you carry on as you are
and they are just taking more interest?
Rear Admiral Jones: It is the latter, my Lord,
very much so, and hopefully that will allay your concerns that
they are not trying to engage in the tactical control of military
forces; it is just to provide a sense of cohesion for all the
different lines of development to tackle piracy.
Q29 Lord Inge: Do you see the pirates
themselves developing tactics that are better co-ordinated amongst
themselves that makes it more difficult for you to carry out your
operations?
Rear Admiral Jones: Yes, I do, my Lord. We have
seen already they are agile and flexible and they learn from our
operations. They have already started to shift their tactics to
a degree to reflect the way in which we have responded to their
first set of attacks. Although we are keenly aware that there
is not a common Somali pirate, some of them are extremely sophisticated,
well organised and synchronised; others are very low key, very
easily deterred, attacks from people who we think are just out
to have a go and there is not a degree of sophistication there,
but at the high end level they are learning and adapting all the
time.
Q30 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Just to go
back, the helicopter identifies the pirate ship and the nearest
ship is a Russian one. Are you de facto tasking it
but putting it in terms: "You might like to go and move in
on this one, although we could not instruct you to do so",
for example, and they end up doing what you want but they do not
come under your command structure. Is that as I understand it?
Rear Admiral Jones: Exactly. There is no sense
that we in any way task them, and we very much make it clear,
and the EU have pressed me quite hard on this, that we are not
de facto incorporating Russian ships into our task force.
Q31 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Why are you
worried about that?
Rear Admiral Jones: They wanted to know that
the EU was not relying on Russian ships to fulfil a particular
part of the patrol area. We will be aware of their presence and
the useful deterrent effect it brings, and I think that is how
we use them, rather than specific tasks.
Q32 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Surely, Admiral,
the more we can actually incorporate the Russians into our efforts
the better, whether they come under our command and control or
not?
Rear Admiral Jones: Absolutely, my Lord, and
I argue that case quite strongly. This is very much a co-ordinated
effort, but there are some political constraints to the ability
to visualise that co-ordination.
Q33 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: It must be
from these Europeans who do not want Russia in the EU!
Rear Admiral Jones: I may refrain from answering
that one!
Chairman: You can give your answer to
that question in writing, if you wish.
Q34 Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean:
You will not be surprised to learn that we are revisiting old
arguments in some cases. As I understand it, what you are telling
us is that it would be less than sensible for you to be intervening
where there is already a capability on the ground which is more
than adequate to deal with the problem. If you know somebody is
there and there is a suspected ship there, clearly you would just
be doubling up or you would find that your resources were better
used elsewhere, and to that degree there is co-ordination and
co-operation. Is that the right interpretation?
Rear Admiral Jones: It is. Thank you for that.
We are employing a tactic called "the group transit"
as what we see as the most effective way to guarantee the safe
passage of merchant ships through the Gulf of Aden. We cannot
convoy them, because there are just too many of them and not enough
of us—there are hundreds and hundreds of merchant ships
transiting the Gulf of Aden every day—but what we do is
make available to them, through the Maritime Security Centre Horn
of Africa website, information about other merchant ships that
are transiting, with a view to getting them to coalesce, as it
were, to travel in loose company, and, in particular, to miss
some of the more dangerous piracy hotspots at the most likely
points of pirate attack, which is very often first thing in the
morning at first light. In doing those group transits we then
make the merchant ships aware of where EU Op Atalanta ships will
be, again, ideally best placed to deter the most likely pirate
attacks in the most high risk areas, but also we make those group
transits available to other maritime forces operating in the area—the
Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Saudis, the Malaysians.
The coalition forces are all aware of those group transits and,
collectively, we think we can position warships to offer the highest
degree of deterrence. So in many ways we are incorporating their
additional capability and we are using the deterrent effect of
any warship to best suppress pirate activity.
Q35 Chairman: I think you have answered
much of the next question in terms of the non-EU forces, but I
would be particularly interested to understand how well the co-ordination
between EU Member States and the EU forces works in terms of what
you are doing.
Rear Admiral Jones: Between the EU Member States
and their forces?
Q36 Chairman: No, I am sorry, between
the different Member State contingencies as part of Atalanta.
Rear Admiral Jones: The EU Member States who
are contributing ships to the force have each done so in full
recognition that they are coming under EU op-command and have
willingly done so accepting that they operate under my operational
command, they operate under EU rules of engagement and that they
will be tasked in accordance with the judgment of the force commander
as to where he needs them to go, and there are no caveats placed
on that, and that is working extremely well. We have five warships
there at the moment; about to get a sixth. They are each from
a different Member State and they are working extremely well and
have each been tasked in different elements of the operation from
World Food Programme protection through to deter and disrupt patrols
in the Gulf of Aden, so I think that element of Member State commitment
to the wider operation is working very well.
Q37 Chairman: What about in terms of
resources as this operation goes on? Is one of the criticisms
that individual EU Member States may be in other theatres of operation
and that offering up equipment or forces is quite difficult to
achieve? Has that been an issue here, or has that not been the
case in this particular operation?
Rear Admiral Jones: The first thing to say is
that we have got a force flow that will run right across the year
of the operation and adequately sustain the force throughout.
We are very keen to make sure people did not just rush in for
the first few months to get the glory of being there when the
operation launched and get the banner headlines and then retreat
and move away. We have a number of Member States who are contributing
forces that will not arrive until the second half of 2009, and
I think that is very welcome. Secondly, we have encouraged all
Member States to contribute in whatever way they can. Clearly,
we are aware that a number of Member States are unlikely to be
able to send a major warship to contribute to counter-piracy or
unlikely to be able to send a maritime patrol aircraft, but we
have encouraged them to look at whatever they can contribute.
For example, we have a number of Member States who are contributing
what we call better protection detachments, teams that we can
put on World Food Programme ships to secure their safety as they
close into Somali ports to unload their food aid. We have got
some Member States who are sending medical teams to be embarked
on our ships to provide medical cover when they cannot send a
ship themselves. We have some Member States who have provided
members of staff to either the operational headquarters at Northwood
or the force headquarters in theatre and their expertise is hugely
welcome, and we are clearly aware that we are helping to train
them too in how something like an operational headquarters works.
So we have got contribution from many more Member States than
just the nine who are currently contributing live forces, but
I am constantly going back to Brussels and saying we have not
closed the door on force generation; we will run a series of force
generation conferences and look to bring new people and new capabilities
into the force all the time.
Q38 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: I think you
have mainly answered question six, but what I would like to do
is to follow up on Lord Anderson's point about this theoretical
pirate ship having ladders, firearms and whatever on board. What
you said was that your reaction to this would be that if they
did not get rid of them, you would. There is, of course, an alternative,
and that is that you get the forensic, you photograph them with
all this kit on board, throwing it overboard, or whatever; you
arrest the ship, you arrest the people on it and take them on
to one of your ships; you sink this boat and you deliver these
people back to Somalia with the forensic that you have got to
go with it. If the Somali authorities do nothing about it, tough,
but at least you have got rid of the boat. Are you not allowed
to do that?
Rear Admiral Jones: On occasions we have done
that, my Lord. We are getting increasingly sophisticated in our
ability to capture evidence that might be used in the subsequent
prosecution of pirates. This is very much a new area for our work.
The ability to have appropriate legal instruments with which to
prosecute detained pirates has been something that we have needed
to set up almost from first principles, and, therefore, we are
learning all the time about what sort of evidence you need in
order to sustain subsequent trials of detained pirates. On occasions,
in the course of detaining pirates and confiscating their equipment,
they have also destroyed their boats, mainly just retaining one
to send them back in. If we destroyed all of their boats, then
we end up with pirates physically detained on board, and that
instantly has an implication for what you are then going to do
with them. We may have to divert our task to go and land them,
we may have to go do fairly convoluted negotiations for where
they are going to be landed and where they are going to be prosecuted.
So very often we will send them back, having destroyed all of
their useful equipment and just leave one boat for them to go
back in, but that is very clearly covered in the rules of engagement
and has become common practice for all ships across all operations,
not just Atalanta, as way of dealing with pirates.
Q39 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Might Somalia
actually prosecute them?
Rear Admiral Jones: We have increasing evidence,
and I am not an expert on what is happening in Somalia itself,
that there are three very distinct areas of the country. There
is Somaliland, Puntland and then rump Somalia, effectively, that
which sits on the coast of the Indian Ocean. There is evidence
in both Somalia and Puntland, i.e. the two elements of the country
that face the Gulf of Aden, that they have resurgent security
structures, the emergence of coast guard organisations and a willingness
to start taking responsibility themselves for their own waters,
policing their territorial waters to eradicate pirates themselves
and, indeed, to secure those waters for the safe use by all Somalis
of their own territorial waters. That is, obviously, a hugely
encouraging sign and all organisations, including the EU, are
increasingly looking to how we can enhance our relationships with
those emerging structures in order to eventually point towards
the regional solution to safety, security and stability, which
is, of course, what we are striving for.
Chairman: In this area, I remind the
Committee Members we have Lord Malloch-Brown coming along in terms
of the broader and maybe more political side of it.
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