Oral evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee on Wednesday 14 May 2003

Members present:

Mr James Cran
Mr David Crausby
Mr Mike Hancock
Mr Gerald Howarth
Jim Knight
Patrick Mercer
Syd Rapson
Mr Frank Roy
Rachel Squire

In the absence of the Chairman, Rachel Squire was called to the chair.

__________

Witness: RT HON GEOFFREY HOON, a Member of the House, Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence, examined.

Q1  Rachel Squire: Good afternoon. Can I begin by welcoming everyone to this meeting of the Defence Committee. It is good to see such an interest. Can I particularly welcome the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, to this evidence session. Can I assure people that I am not Bruce George, the Chairman of the Committee, in disguise. Unfortunately the Chairman has had to be absent even though he very much wished to be here and he certainly extends his sincere apologies to you, Secretary of State. As you may be aware, he is also President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and is opening an international conference in Switzerland today which is a longstanding commitment. Given the speed at which you accepted our invitation, it was not a commitment unfortunately that he was able to cancel. So a very warm welcome to you, and to the first evidence session of this Committee which has decided to conduct a major inquiry into the military campaign in Iraq. Can I ask you, Secretary of State, if you would like to make an opening statement before I open up to questions from the Committee?

Mr Hoon: Thank you, Rachel, and thank you and the Committee for inviting me here today. It seems to me that both the Committee and the Ministry of Defence have a common interest in assessing recent military operations in Iraq and identifying any lessons that need to be learned for future operations. Could I say at this stage how grateful I am for the Committee's understanding of the inevitable constraints which would apply to what we could say publicly during the main combat phase, and I hope the Committee found our informal classified discussions of assistance. As the Committee would expect, the Ministry of Defence has launched a thorough and broad-ranging exercise to identify lessons learned from the operation. This work has only just started; it will be several weeks before we can publish our initial thoughts, and several months before we can present definitive conclusions. In this first evidence session of your inquiry I would like to summarise the developments of the past few months to help provide a starting point for analysis. I am sure you will appreciate that, while some operations are still continuing, there will be certain areas I will be unable to discuss publicly. This brings me to my first point. While we have acknowledged the cessation of decisive combat operations in Iraq, military operations are by no means over. On 20 March we published a comprehensive set of military campaign objectives. The six main tasks that we identified then have now been largely achieved. In particular, as we have seen, the resistance of the Iraqi security forces was overcome and the Iraqi regime removed, through a remarkable display of skill at arms on the part of the Coalition coupled with an unwillingness of significant sections of the Iraqi Armed Forces to fight for the regime. The speed and success of military operations meant that the majority of Iraq's essential economic infrastructure was secured before the regime's adherents had time to sabotage it. For perhaps the same reason, the Iraqi regime did not use weapons of mass destruction against our forces. Significant work is now underway in Iraq to identify and secure suspected WMD sites as well as to collect and analyse evidence, although this will inevitably take time. Finally, wider conflict, inside or outside Iraq, has so far been successfully avoided. We have therefore made very significant progress but the mission is not yet complete. The majority of the forces we deployed to the Gulf remain within Iraq engaged in operations to stabilise the security situation. We will continue to work to set the conditions where the Iraqis can build their political, economic and administrative institutions, and look forward with confidence to an independent and prosperous future for Iraq. As you know, the Government had hoped that the international community would deal successfully with the issue of Iraq's WMD without recourse to military action but the Ministry of Defence had an important role to play from an early stage. Visible military preparations helped to underpin our diplomacy by demonstrating resolve, whilst at the same time ensuring that our forces were prepared to take action should diplomacy fail. Before describing this work, I need to make one fundamental point. We could not have fielded the size and quality of the force we did in the short time achieved without the development of our military infrastructure - people, training, equipment, logistics support, leadership, performance management - that has gone on since the 1997/1998 Strategic Defence Review. Forces like ours do not simply fall, ready formed, from the sky. More immediately, we embarked on a process of prudent preparation and planning to bring our forces up to maximum readiness. This included working to meet urgent equipment capability requirements, either by accelerating existing programmes or by procuring new equipment against very short time scales. One issue which the Committee will no doubt want to explore in due course is our performance in terms of ensuring the reliability and appropriateness of the equipment. To fine-tune the existing capability, we worked around the clock with our partners in industry to implement over 180 measures at a total value of half a million pounds, from dust mitigation for the Challenger 2 tank through enhancements for our maritime mine disposal capability to accelerated delivery of Storm Shadow missiles. Initial reports on equipment performance in the campaign are very positive. They suggest, for example, that availability for the Challenger 2 tanks was over 90 per cent; availability of the AS90 self-propelled gun and Warrior armoured infantry fighting vehicle was also very high, but it will take some time to collect full data on equipment performance and to analyse it properly. I am sure we will identify room for improvement but I think we will also find a number of very significant successes. Towards the end of 2002 and in the early weeks of 2003 our preparations necessarily moved up a gear. Along with the United States we began to deploy significant forces to the Gulf region, providing a credible threat of force in support of the UN process. This was the largest logistics effort by the UK Armed Forces since the 1991 Gulf conflict but, on this occasion, we deployed about the same number of personnel and volume of materiel but in just half the time previously. Around 45,000 servicemen and women from all three services with all their equipment, from tents to tanks and planes to portaloos and the supplies of food, water, fuel and ammunition required to sustain them, were deployed 3,400 kms to the region in 73 ship moves and over 1200 chartered and military aircraft sorties. Again, we are looking to identify lessons from this process. In a logistics operation of this size there are bound to be glitches and we will look at how we can avoid these in the future, but I would like to take this opportunity in paying tribute to the remarkable hard work of those who have been involved throughout the logistics chain. They do not always get the praise that they deserve. Can I now turn to the main combat phase? Once it became clear that diplomacy had run its course, military operations in Iraq began in earnest in the early hours on 20 March. Whilst these operations were US-led, the significant role played by the United Kingdom should not be underestimated. United Kingdom assets and personnel from all three services played an important part throughout. At sea, we deployed a substantial force comprising 29 Royal Naval and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships and six chartered commercial vessels. Our Amphibious Task Group supported the initial assault on the Al Faw peninsula on the evening of 20 March, preventing any repeat of the disastrous oil spills that we saw in the Gulf conflict in 1991. Our submarines contributed to the air offensive with their Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. Frigates and destroyers were active in providing naval gunfire support and force protection, while our mine countermeasures vessels have played a crucial role in clearing channels through the waterways of southern Iraq, opening up vital routes for the delivery in particular of humanitarian supplies. Royal Fleet Auxiliary did excellent service in logistics provision. On land, 1 (UK) Armoured Division was one of three divisions available to General Franks, while 7th Armoured Brigade provided a third - 116 - of the tanks fielded. Our Royal Marine Commandos were among the first to enter Iraq, working with the US Marines to secure the Al Faw peninsula, and in particular the key port of Umm Qasr, through which all subsequent seaborne humanitarian aid has been channelled. 16 Air Assault Brigade secured the Rumaylah oilfields almost intact, safeguarding the economic aspirations of the Iraqi people. British forces also secured Basra, the second city of Iraq. They are now showing remarkable energy and initiative in their efforts to restore or improve utilities, to distribute humanitarian aid, to ensure law and order through dawn patrols with local police and to establish a civilian administration. In the air, over 100 RAF aircraft made an important contribution to the Coalition's disruption of the Iraqi command and control system, flying over 2,500 combat and combat support missions - some 7.5 per cent of the total flow. This was undoubtedly the most integrated coalition air campaign the world has ever seen, and indeed the most precisely targeted. The Joint Helicopter Command provided crucial combat support throughout the operations from bases on land and at sea. Unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably, there were casualties. To date 35 British servicemen have lost their lives in the course of operations in Iraq and our thoughts remain with those they have left behind. Where possible we will consider what can be done further to improve the safety of our forces on operations. We regret too the Iraqi civilian casualties that occurred, despite all our best efforts to minimise those casualties. If I may now deal with the prospects for Iraq, the details of Iraq's future are still being worked through but our ultimate vision is clear. We want to see Iraq become a stable, united, and law abiding state, within its present borders, co-operating with the international community, no longer posing a threat to its neighbours or to international security, abiding by all its international obligations, and providing effective representative government for its own people. UK forces will continue to play a part in this for as long as they are needed. We are currently working on the practicalities of multinational stabilisation operations, and are involved in a dynamic planning process to tailor our military contribution accordingly, withdrawing forces where we can and replacing those whose tasks are continuing. We will continue to work with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and other agencies to provide humanitarian aid to those who need it, and will keep working to restore or improve basic services such as water and food distribution, power and medical care. We will go on conducting operations further to improve the security situation within Iraq and to set the conditions for the Iraqis to rebuild their political and economic institutions. We will continue to provide support to the process of discovering and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and when the time is right we will leave. In conclusion, we have seen a military campaign in Iraq that has set new standards. Our armed forces and individual servicemen and women as well as our civil servants contributed to a phenomenal success in an extraordinarily short space of time, as did the Ministry of Defence as a whole. I am sure the Committee feels the same sense of pride and gratitude as I do, but we also owe it to them to be rigorous in analysing our performance and to be ready to identify the things that did not go so well, so that we can do even better in the future. I am grateful for your attention.

Q2  Rachel Squire: Thank you very much for that opening statement. Can I begin by just picking up on some of the comments you made about food and preparation and planning throughout the campaign, and I would wish to say of course that I know all members of the Committee would certainly agree with your praise for all sections of our Armed Forces and our sympathy for the casualties that occurred. On the planning stage you talked about the detailed planning with the United States taking place or starting to get down to the detail around 2002/3. Can you clarify when the in-house Ministry of Defence planning began and when the joint planning with the Americans began prior to that detailed operational stage?

Mr Hoon: Can I make clear, not least because of history, that there was in existence - as there are in relation to a number of potential theatres of operation - outline plans for dealing with Iraq, and that will not come as any great surprise to the Committee. We have had military operations in the Gulf region in the relatively recent past and clearly there are preparations for a range of military eventualities that any prudent Minister of Defence has to prepare for, and I certainly include the United Kingdom's in that. In terms of specific operations to remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq, the reason for conducting a military operation subsequently, the Prime Minister made clear on 24 September of last year that there must be genuine preparedness and planning to take action if the diplomatic route failed, and that really is the start date as far as the specific work that was required in order to make our forces available for any conflict should that be necessary, although I do emphasise at that stage that we were still clearly pursuing a diplomatic solution to the problem.

Q3  Patrick Mercer: Secretary of State, what were the strategic considerations that influenced the shape of the United Kingdom's contribution, please?

Mr Hoon: Perhaps you would like to be a little more precise: I could go on at that for quite some time. What specific aspect are you concerned about?

Q4  Patrick Mercer: I am interested in the size of the United Kingdom deployment; the force balance of our deployment - that will do for a start. The size and the force balance.

Mr Hoon: Winning.

Q5  Patrick Mercer: Should we have had more armour?

Mr Hoon: Winning and ensuring that we had an appropriate balance of forces, not only to conduct high intensity warfare at the initial combat stage but at the same time recognising, as the Committee will be aware from previous conflicts that the United Kingdom has engaged in, that British forces expect, very quickly after warfare has ended, to be engaged in peace-keeping and reconstruction, and therefore in terms of the force balance it was obviously important that we had the right combination of forces to be able to do the job. Bear in mind as well, and I am sure the Committee will, that we were operating in a US-led coalition, and that force balance as well was not just a balance across United Kingdom forces but across coalition forces and therefore the amount of armour, for example, was balanced with the armour available to the United States.

Q6  Patrick Mercer: When the decision which was widely suggested at one stage for the British troops to come in through the north, through Turkey, changed, how did that influence the planning?

Mr Hoon: If it were the case that we were going to make a substantial operation from the north I accept that there were outline plans for that, but had that continued it would not have affected the overall balance of our forces in that the essence of the planning was to provide Saddam Hussein and his regime with a set of circumstances, not all of which they could cope with at any one time. The idea, therefore, of a northern option was to give another situation to the regime that they could not handle. As it turned out, resistance in the north proved ultimately to be very limited and, indeed, the ability of the regime to move forces from the north to defend other parts of the country proved very limited so the overall force composition, in this case coming in essentially from the south rather than from the north and the south as perhaps at one stage was anticipated, did not particularly affect the level of resistance by the regime.

Q7  Patrick Mercer: I have to say I was personally gratified at the size of the force but could we have deployed a larger force?

Mr Hoon: There are certainly areas in which we could have deployed more forces, although I think in the circumstances we got it about right, as you in particular on this Committee will be aware. Planning is not to a particular specific plan. Modern planning provides force commanders with a range of options and alternatives depending on circumstances, and therefore the size of this force was to allow for a number of possible contingencies - not all of which obviously occurred.

Q8  Patrick Mercer: Lastly, how did the firemen's strike influence the planning for Operation Telic?

Mr Hoon: It certainly meant we did not have 19,000 members of the Armed Forces available that we might have been able to choose from, but as the Committee will recall there were some adjustments, I think in November/December of last year, in order to ensure that we had the right kinds of forces available to conduct operations in and around Iraq. Those adjustments were part of the process of ensuring the right kind of balance whilst at the same time continuing our commitment to providing emergency fire cover, and overall both tasks were managed satisfactorily

Q9  Mr Hancock: Good afternoon, Secretary of State. I would be interested to know if you could tell us when the decision was made and who finally made that decision that we would be assigned the southern sector around Basra?

Mr Hoon: Those are the kinds of discussion that take place between allies. There was no one, as far as I can recall, specific decision. We were fully involved in the planning process through Centcom; we were fully engaged in detailed discussions at every level between the Ministry of Defence here and the Pentagon; and it emerged, is the best way I can describe it to you, that we could make our contribution most effectively in the south and that was something that we readily agreed to, not least because obviously it gave us much shorter lines of communication back to bases further south.

Q10  Mr Hancock: Did inoperability between our forces and the American forces play a significant part in that decision to give us that sector and that sector alone?

Mr Hoon: No, it did not, but it is clearly the case that Armed Forces, both between coalition members but also within a particular country, and I can give you illustrations from the United States if necessary, are better if they operate as coherent entities, and all the military advice that I have been receiving is that at a relatively large scale, which is what we are talking about, it is better to keep the coherence of large scale national units. It does not apply to smaller specialist organisations who have a particular function, but where large scale manoeuvre warfare is involved, which is what we are talking about here, then the coherence of the organisation is important. If you look at the advance that the Americans made along two axes towards Baghdad two separate military organisations were involved, and indeed on the point about coherence their fourth infantry division, very highly and technologically sophisticated, as yet will not find it easy to mix and match with other elements who are not part of that technologically sophisticated operation. So even within countries the coherence of military organisations is extremely important. It has to be taken account of in the planning of these kinds of operations.

Q11  Mr Hancock: Were you surprised at that situation of inoperability and capabilities being able to be mixed and matched easily as being a problem? Were you surprised at how that materialised? Did the Americans dig in and say it was safer if we fought in different places?

Mr Hoon: I think it is important to warn you in particular to take account of what I just said --

Q12  Mr Hancock: I listened very carefully to what you just said.

Mr Hoon: I was talking about large scale operations. I went on to qualify that by talking about specialised units. For example, there was remarkable interoperability between specialised air and ground forces at all stages of this campaign where the air components worked interchangeably in addressing targets, identified often by people on the ground or by dealing with targets that had previously been planned but without a specific decision as to which kind of aircraft and which kind of weapon would be used, and complete seamless interoperability in those circumstances, so I think it is important to put it into context in the way that I did without making generalisations.

Q13  Mr Hancock: I did not make generalisations. I asked were you surprised at the lack of --

Mr Hoon: I obviously was not surprised because I pointed out to you only a few moments ago the fact that specialist --

Q14  Mr Hancock: I said were you surprised --

Mr Hoon: I have not finished -- that specialist forces were quite clearly interoperable and operated seamlessly within the coalition, both from the United States and from the United Kingdom, and I said that.

Q15  Mr Hancock: Okay. We have a different opinion. Was it in the plan at any time for substantial British ground forces to be deployed elsewhere in Iraq?

Mr Hoon: British ground forces were deployed elsewhere in Iraq, yes.

Q16  Mr Hancock: In substantial numbers?

Mr Hoon: For reasons the Committee will be well aware of, I am not going to answer that question.

Chairman: Any more?

Mr Hancock: No, not at this stage. I will come back.

Q17  Mr Crausby: Good afternoon, Secretary of State. There were reports during the campaign of broadcasts and leaflet drops to persuade the Iraqi people and Iraqi forces to surrender but there was also talk of e-mailing senior Iraqi officers, warning them not to use weapons of mass destruction. Could you tell us what steps were taken both before and during the campaign to dissuade leaders within the Iraqi Armed Forces from using any weapons of mass destruction which they may or may not have had available?

Mr Hoon: As you rightly observe, a range of efforts was made to demonstrate to the Iraqi people at every level of their system that we had no quarrel with them as individuals: that our difficulty was with Saddam Hussein's regime: and, as you indicated, television, radio, other media in particular, a large number of leaflets were dropped in order to make that point very clearly, and if I may say so, directly dealing with your question, the nature in particular of the air attack should have demonstrated that as well because the targeting of institutions and buildings that were of the regime was very precise, and certainly we had reports that that had been clearly noticed by people inside Iraq. As far as the question of weapons of mass destruction is concerned, certainly warnings were given that use of weapons of mass destruction by senior Iraqi military would be regarded as a war crime, and the fact that they were pursuing higher orders would not be an acceptable explanation, so a very clear and stern warning was given to the Iraqi military about that.

Q18  Mr Crausby: You were telling me, Secretary of State, about information operations and I wondered how effective you thought those operations were, particularly in the non use of weapons of mass destruction. In addition to that, were there any constraints as far as information operations were concerned as a result of the lack of Arabic speakers, particularly as many of them are Territorial Army? Have you any thoughts on that?

Mr Hoon: I believe that I can properly answer the impact of information operations without consulting my Iraqi counterpart, and since I have no idea where he is --

Q19  Mr Howarth: Why not?

Mr Hoon: In the end I place much greater weight in terms of the rapidity of effect of the operations to disrupt command and control rather than specifically the information operations, although I cannot absolutely answer that properly, but I believe very strongly that the way in which the initial operations were organised and conducted made it almost impossible for the regime in the appropriate time to reassemble their weapons and to be able to use them against our forces. That obviously was part of the plan as developed and executed

Q20  Mr Cran: Secretary of State, I wonder if we could move on to the legitimacy of the exercise? The Committee is well aware that on 17 March the Government published the Attorney General's view of the legitimacy of the operation; nonetheless, there was quite a lot of wrangling around it publicly. Could you reassure the Committee that you did not receive any representations at all from senior officers about the legitimacy of the exercise itself?

Mr Hoon: I did not.

Q21  Mr Cran: I merely ask that question because even Members of Parliament now, those who voted for the exercise, are receiving letters from a particular outfit saying they are going to be pursued in the courts for having voted in favour of it, and therefore it is just concentrating minds that you are making it quite clear you had none.

Mr Hoon: As the Committee will be aware, the Attorney General published a summary of his legal advice to the Government. He said: "The Security Council also decided in Resolution 1441 that if Iraq failed at any time to comply with and co-operate fully with the implementation of Resolution 1441 that would constitute a further material breach. It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply and therefore Iraq was, at the time of Resolution 1441 and continues to be, in material breach. Thus the authority to use force under Resolution 678 was revived and so continues today".

Q22  Mr Cran: And that was wholly accepted by, as it were, the Armed Forces?

Mr Hoon: Of course.

Q23  Mr Cran: It would be well understood by serving officers but we live in a public age these days and I think it would be proper for you to tell the Committee the steps we would take to ensure that those troops that are deployed, in this case in Iraq, do know what our obligations - and, indeed, their obligations are - at international level, what they can do and what they cannot do. Talk us through that.

Mr Hoon: I accept that it starts, and the Committee is right to begin at this point, with the overall legitimacy of military operations set out by the Attorney General in that summary, reflecting the advice he gave consistently to the government. There is a process in the courts of military operations where commanding officers need to be satisfied that their orders are legal and are consistent: that process was satisfied in this case by the Chief of the Defence Staff whose job it is to set out the detailed instructions for the Armed Forces, and that is precisely the process that was gone through on this occasion - as it is on every other occasion where force is likely to be used. It is reflected at each stage in the chain of command by the process of instruction and ordering that goes right down to the lowest level of the Armed Forces.

Q24  Mr Cran: And you would want to take this opportunity to reassure the Committee that there were no defects in the communicative system that you outline, in this instance, of Iraq?

Mr Hoon: I am certainly not aware of any. None have been reported to me and I am content that that process of communication worked at every level and in each of the three Armed Forces.

Q25  Mr Cran: And there have been no instances where it was breached?

Mr Hoon: I am not aware of any.

Q26  Mr Cran: Fine. Did the extensive coverage, and I recall it there was very extensive coverage prior to the event about the legitimacy of the exercise - and I can think of statements by Kofi Annan, a very significant figure indeed, saying that it should be through the United Nations and nothing else - did this particular public debate as was have any effect in your view on the morale of our armed services, or did they in their usual professional way simply get on with it?

Mr Hoon: I was obviously in regular contact with the Chiefs of Staff and with other commanders in the field. I visited the forces myself and met with those who were likely to be engaged in conflict and I did not become aware of any impact on morale. Indeed, the consistent reports I received right through the conflict from the chiefs was that morale was extraordinarily high.

Q27  Mr Cran: The answers to all your questions to me thus far would lead me to believe that so-called perceived new interest in all our legal obligations - me as a member of Parliament, you as a Minister, our soldiers being deployed in the field and so on - is having, in the case of our soldiers, absolutely no effect at all. They are taking it in their stride.

Mr Hoon: That would be my understanding.

Q28  Mr Howarth: Secretary of State, very quickly on this point, as a lawyer you yourself will know that a number of very expensive lawyers - probably even more expensive than yourself - have opined that the war was unconstitutional. I spoke to a senior officer who said to me that the situation in this country is that it is the view of the Attorney General which is definitive. Can you confirm that constitutionally that is the case? That whatever other views there may be, it is the opinion of the Attorney General which constitutionally does define what is legal and is not legal? Very quickly, could you say is it possible for that to be challenged or should we take it that that is the definitive view on the law in this country?

Mr Hoon: You are clearly asking me as a former constitutional law lecturer rather than as the Secretary of State for Defence --

Q29  Mr Howarth: Nobody could be better placed to answer the question!

Mr Hoon: -- but of course it is the role of the Attorney General in our constitution to provide legal advice to the Government, and governments would normally expect to act upon that legal advice. The only slight reservation I would make is that legal advice is not always in one direction. If I can refer back to the times when I was a poorly paid legal aid lawyer, there would not be any point in having lawyers or courts if everybody agreed precisely on the state of the law. The job of a legal adviser is to provide just that, advice, a judgment, about what is the state of the law. If we all agreed on the state of the law, then clearly that requirement for all those highly paid lawyers that you generously referred to would not be necessary. So I think it is important to emphasise that whilst in this case, given the advice that he tendered, there was no doubt whatsoever about the legality of military operations, I can conceive of occasions - not ones affecting the Ministry of Defence, I am pleased to say - where legal advice might not be so clear cut.

Q30  Mr Howarth: But in your view it is that advice which is now unchallengeable as the definitive view of Government?

Mr Hoon: Yes.

Q31  Mr Roy: Weapons of mass destruction were given as the main reason to topple the Saddam regime, and finding them presumably is essential to the credibility of both the United Kingdom and the US governments. Given the minor evidence of WMD found so far presumably that would not justify the war just undertaken - indeed, many now question whether those weapons were even in Iraq during the last few months. Can you expand on what has been done so far, and what would be done in the near future to try to find the WMD?

Mr Hoon: Can I emphasise to the Committee that I do not particularly accept that way of seeing the weapons of mass destruction, since we had long standing evidence of Iraq's programmes of developing weapons of mass destruction; that was published in dossier by the government which has never been challenged; it was also set out by the Secretary of State in a hearing before the Security Council: the last report of UNMOVIC indicated their concerns over a whole range of issues that they believe the Iraqi regime had not properly answered; we have found, for example, large amounts of protective clothing available to Iraqi forces, the only purpose of which could be to protect those forces from their own biological or chemical weapons since the coalition does not possess such weapons; and in addition, as I indicated to the House the other day, we have most recently found a vehicle, the only purpose of which we judge could be for the development of biological weapons. So there is a range of evidence - I could not accept that there is minor evidence - there is a range of detailed evidence demonstrating that Iraq was engaged in a determined way, over a very long period of time, in the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Q32  Mr Roy: Going on from there, I know you are saying there is evidence, whether it is minor or major, but surely at the same time if the government had said two or three months ago "We have found a large batch of suits that would help against chemical warfare", that would not be justification for having a war. If it was not major evidence then, now it could hardly be described as major evidence surely?

Mr Hoon: Going back to 1441, the entire Security Council accepted the evidence that had been put before them and voted unanimously a very tough resolution calling on Iraq to co-operate with the weapons inspectors, so there is no doubt in anyone's mind that significant evidence exists. What we are engaged on now is identifying potential locations where that evidence may be found, given of course that we were aware from the moment the weapons inspectors went into Iraq that Iraq had been engaged in a very determined programme of concealment, of dissembling weapons, of hiding material around the country. It will inevitably take some time in a country the size of France to locate that equipment but I am confident we will do so.

Q33  Mr Roy: Can you expand on how far down the road you are in looking for weapons of mass destruction? Can you put a size on it? Can you say, "We have looked at so many sites. We thought there were 50 sites, for example, and we have already looked at five to give us an idea of how far along the road we are on this"?

Mr Hoon: Prior to the conflict we had information on at least 500 potential WMD sites. We have a list now of the most sensitive sites for exploration and analysis, and we have begun the process of investigating some of those sites. There is considerable work still to do. It may well in fact be the case that some of the relevant information, some of the practical evidence, has been hidden elsewhere and a very determined effort is being made by coalition forces to investigate that. We are likely to have something like between 1500 and 2000 people conducting those investigations, including analysts, interviewers, IT and weapons experts, people with specialist skills designed to obtain information in particular from those who would be knowledgeable about these programmes, as well as those who would have been engaged in the determined deception that took place.

Q34  Mr Hancock: In answer to a question during one of the debates we had on Iraq before the war started, I asked you a question about the sites and I asked if you would give the locations that you said you knew of to the inspectors and you said, "No, we cannot do that because it would be security sensitive and it would prejudice the sources of that information". Bearing in mind that you have just said again you knew 500 sites, do you regret not giving that information to the inspectors to enable those sites to have been --

Mr Hoon: I do not recall answering your question in quite that way.

Q35  Mr Hancock: You did. You certainly said --

Mr Hoon: If you would like to produce the relevant extract of Hansard I would be delighted to see it. My recollection of our exchange was that I indicated to the House that there were incidences where the disclosure of information might lead to security problems but I also indicated that we co-operated with the inspectors - because that is the case. We did provide information to the inspectors, as did the United States.

Q36  Mr Hancock: Of the 500 sites you just said you knew of, did you give that information to the inspectors?

Mr Hoon: As I have just explained, there was some information that we provided to the inspectors where we judged --

Q37  Mr Hancock: Did it include any of those 500 sites?

Mr Hoon: -- where we judged that it was safe, as far as our sources of information were concerned, to do so: we published a great deal of information about potential sites that was available in a dossier that anyone could read, as did Colin Powell in his evidence to the Security Council, so there was a range of information. It is impossible for me today to categorise which piece of information we made available and which we did not out of 500 sites. As I said to you in previous exchanges, that information was made available. Some of it was not.

Q38  Mr Hancock: You said you knew of 500 sites. It is obvious you cannot name those sites this afternoon but I would be interested to know, and I am sure that for the benefit of our report it would be interesting to know, if you gave any of those 500 sites (or what proportion of them you gave) to the inspectors on in advance so that they could examine those sites.

Mr Hoon: Again, I am not in a position to be able to provide that information because not all of that information is necessarily information that is a responsibility of the United Kingdom Government.

Rachel Squire: That is certainly an issue that the Committee will choose to follow up.

Q39  Patrick Mercer: Secretary of State, before the war there was a series of reasons being deployed for why we should go to war. There now seems to be only one, which is weapons of mass destruction. After the debacle of the so-called dodgy dossier, and I do not say that in a pejorative way at all, -----

Mr Hoon: It sounded fairly pejorative.

Q40  Patrick Mercer: It was not meant to be. It was merely for ease of reference. The connection between Baghdad and al-Qaeda has not come up again yet. We see organisations such as Ansar al-Islam, which was widely thought to be responsible for the ricin attacks in north London, driven off, killed and captured. My colleagues and my friends tell me that many of the people that they have killed and captured in their words are hardened terrorists, not necessarily Iraqis, in some cases Chechens, others who clearly have had Jihad training and, notwithstanding the recent events in Riyadh, Muslim extremist terror seems to be at a low at the moment. This strikes me as being an extremely convincing argument for the connection between the regime and international terrorism and yet nothing is being made of it. Why?

Mr Hoon: Can I just correct your premise? I would not want to be accused of having agreed with your initial observation because the sole justification has always been Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. There has never been a statement that I am aware of by any member of this Government suggesting that the reason for military action was anything other than to remove from the Iraqi regime their control of weapons of mass destruction. Notwithstanding your premise, we indicated our concern about links between al-Qaeda and Iraq and the presence of a known senior figure in al-Qaeda in Baghdad from time to time was a matter that was made known. Certainly, as your question very properly indicated, there were other terrorist organisations operating broadly in the territory today comprising Iraq, and coalition forces reports in various parts of Iraq determined from resistance by non-Iraqi military forces, who very often proved to have a diverse range of nationalities, with some indications surrounding their presence there, that they had had the kind of training which you describe, and certainly that they were there in order to attack coalition forces in a way that was far more determined and far more ruthless than that demonstrated by Iraq's own forces. Whether they were there for the long term or whether they arrived in Iraq shortly before the conflict began I am not entirely in a position to judge. My sense would be that many of them arrived relatively late before the conflict started.

Q41  Patrick Mercer: If those connections were to be underlined rather more clearly I think it would be deeply helpful to your cause.

Mr Hoon: But it would not necessarily sustain our central argument about the need to remove from Iraq weapons of mass destruction, which was the purpose of military action.

Q42  Jim Knight: You mentioned in your opening comments, Secretary of State, tribute to the logistics effort, quite rightly. The Committee, as you know, way back in October 2001 visited exercise Saif Sareea in Oman which did not really test your ability to rapidly deploy and sustain a medium scale operation of Joint Rapid Reaction Force proportions. It nevertheless showed, according to Ministry of Defence lessons reports, that strategic lift remained a limiting factor in sustaining a force of 15,000 personnel. In the case of this operation to what extent did strategic lift constrain how quickly you were able to get a much bigger force to the Iraq theatre?

Mr Hoon: There was a remarkable logistics effort. It succeeded. It could have succeeded in different ways had there been, for example, more aircraft available, but that is not to say necessarily that the numbers that we had available were in any way a limiting factor. The issue is how many flights take place. Sometimes having more aircraft, given the limitations, for example, of aircraft movements in and around a theatre, would not make any difference because physically it would not be possible to fly more into the particular base in question. I am absolutely confident that we had the right combination of lift needed to get this force at this speed to where it was going.

Q43  Jim Knight: The emphasis you have just placed on air lift suggests that sea lift went very well but perhaps a little more air lift capability would have been helpful.

Mr Hoon: Clearly air lift generally gives the maximum speed, but in deploying 115 tanks, for example, air lift could be done but it is of limited utility, not least because, even if you had 115 C-17s all lined up to fly one after the other into the Gulf, it would be quite difficult to deal with that volume at the other end, particularly when the other end was also receiving large amounts of equipment and personnel from the United States. It is not just the air lift that is a limiting factor or the number of aircraft. The number of air movements is a much more relevant issue, and particularly where at either end it is necessary to de-conflict large amounts of equipment and movements given the limitations of the pipe from which the equipment is setting off and where it is going into.

Q44  Jim Knight: There was considerable comment in the media in the run-up to conflict about shortages of this, that and the other and things not working, and there has been a bit less comment on how things have worked since. Do you think we would have had less of that comment if the lift had given you more rapidity? I accept the constraints you have just mentioned, but do you think that if you had got all the requisite numbers of boots out, for example, to people when they wanted them, the lift would have been any better?

Mr Hoon: All the requisite numbers of boots and clothing and equipment were there and, having only had a brief opportunity of inviting editors of newspapers to devote an appropriate amount of space to the success of the equipment, given the hugely disproportionate amount of space they wasted on making facile criticisms of equipment that proved its worth in the conflict, I am still waiting to see any signs of apology from either individual journalists or from their editors.

Q45  Jim Knight: I am glad I gave you the opportunity to make that comment. Clearly there was a lengthy diplomatic phase during which there was a military build-up which, as you said at the beginning, was useful in adding weight to that diplomatic phase, but did that also prove useful logistically for you? If you had had to move more rapidly, clearly you would have had more constraint.

Mr Hoon: Not necessarily. I am not quibbling in saying that but, had we had to move more rapidly, for example, we could have taken up more ships from trade, we could have taken more commercial vessels, we could have looked at ways in which we secured more air lift should that have been required.

Q46  Jim Knight: You would still have the log-jam at the other end.

Mr Hoon: That is the point, that it will depend on not only the actual amount of lift in terms of numbers of aircraft and numbers of ships immediately available but also how much you use particular aircraft, how quickly you can turn them around and, moreover, crucially, the space for them where they are going. Sometimes people tend, understandably, to concentrate on platforms without necessarily concentrating on the real issue which is outputs, what you get out of what efforts you are making.

Q47  Mr Howarth: What is the balance between the use of the MoD's own lift assets, both ships and aircraft, and those which are chartered on the open market?

Mr Hoon: I do not think I have got that information readily available. No doubt (he says pessimistically) someone will have it. I can make that information available.

Q48  Mr Howarth: I think it would be quite helpful because, if I can remind you, as it does happen to tell me here, in the Kosovo campaign you chartered 23 ships and 50 flights from the commercial sector. I think it would be quite interesting to know just how much you had to pay and whether you had to pay anything over the odds for this commercial lift. Can you tell us that? Did you have to pay over what would otherwise be peace-time steady state market rates?

Mr Hoon: Again, I will have to write to the Committee about that. My sense would be that shrewd entrepreneurs would probably have adjusted their prices knowing the likely demand that was coming down the track, but that is one of the issues that we are looking at in the way in which we are organising our own sea lift so that we have guaranteed access to ships when we need them. Again, the scale of this operation was such that it went beyond what was anticipated, for example, in relation to the Joint Rapid Reaction Force concept of deployment, so obviously we did need to go to the market for this scale of operation as we would have to do in the future because it would simply not be sensible, even for the United States, to have this number of ships always available sitting idle given that we would not anticipate using them from year to year. There is a balance, a judgment, to be made there. It is part of the reason why we have organised our arrangements for sea lift in the way that we have, recognising that we have a relatively modest week to week requirement for sea lift but recognising as well that there are times when that sea lift is urgently needed and on a greater scale than routinely. These things are a balance, they are a judgment. We could certainly go out and buy lots of ro-ro ferries and have them sitting idle for this kind of eventuality but I do not judge that the Committee would find that particularly satisfactory.

Q49  Mr Howarth: On the C-17s, were you pleased with their operation and, given that part of the lease arrangement, I gather, is that we pay for 750 hours a year but over that utilisation you pay a pretty hefty premium, did you pay over the odds and again, if you have not got that information to hand perhaps you could write to us and tell us?

Mr Hoon: I will, certainly. On the substantive issue, the C-17s have provided a superb contribution since they were delivered to the United Kingdom not only in this operation but also in previous operations. They have been an absolutely magnificent addition to our capabilities.

Q50  Mr Howarth: Have they swayed you to have rather more C-17s instead of A-400s?

Mr Hoon: I am certainly very impressed by their capabilities.

Mr Howarth: I think I agree with that.

Q51  Syd Rapson: Secretary of State, the United States has for many years been very clever in pre-positioning its spares and equipment in potential theatres of conflict before any operations have commenced. As the UK will be experiencing a Middle Eastern focus in the future, are there any considerations for our pre-positioning in these theatres?

Mr Hoon: Yes. I think it is to do with the fact that the US defence budget is now around $400 billion.

Q52  Syd Rapson: So the answer would be that we are not considering pre-positioning kit that we have already bought in advance of any requirement?

Mr Hoon: I think that is a fair conclusion to draw and it is not because I am in any way opposed to the idea of pre-positioning that amount of equipment. I just do not have that amount of equipment. Unless the Committee is going to recommend that the defence budget of the Untied Kingdom gets close to that of the United States I think it is highly unlikely that we will be in a position to do so.

Q53  Mr Hancock: You were very dismissive to Jim about the stories that appeared in the papers about the kit and equipment and you seemed to belittle the suggestions that were being made by the troops in Kuwait in the early stages that they were short of rations and some of their kit was not correct. Are you absolutely sure that those soldiers and marines and others who were making those claims were wrong?

Mr Hoon: I am certainly suggesting that in a force of around 45,000 people across three services there may have been the odd person who, for example, did not get the right sized pair of boots. There may have been the odd soldier who one day did not get his lunchtime ration pack. There may have been the odd soldier who did not like his ready-to-eat meal issued by the United States to their forces. There is not the slightest suggestion, however, that any of the stories that appeared so routinely in our newspapers stood up to detailed analysis against what was delivered and what was proved ultimately to be a very successful campaign based on logistic success and the quality of our equipment.

Q54  Mr Hancock: So would you say all of those many soldiers who contacted their families and asked them to send them stuff - and your own Minister in answer talked about the deluge of parcels that arrived - were wrong? This was not the odd soldier. This was thousands of them who asked for stuff to be sent to them, Secretary of State. Are you seriously telling us that in your organisation you have no record of any of the commanders saying, "We have a morale problem here. There is a shortage of rations. Some of our soldiers have not got the right kit"? There is no record at all within the MoD of those thousands of soldiers who bothered to get in touch with their families, either by phone or by mail, and whose families responded by sending them there, and that they were just the odd whingers? Is that what you are saying?

Mr Hoon: No, I am not saying they were the odd whingers. I am sure the Committee is well aware of the way in which these things operate. I have a letter in my family from my uncle who wrote home in the First World War asking for cigarettes to be sent to him, and the kinds of requests that were made were requests for the kinds of equipment, some toiletries, for example, that were simply not readily available in theatre at the time. Not surprisingly, given that I saw those stories in the newspapers, I checked routinely with the chiefs of staff whether they had those kinds of complaints from our forces, and they assured me at every stage that there were not such complaints. I have indicated the kinds of problems that arose. Our soldiers did not always like the American meal. It did not suit them necessarily in terms of taste but it was perfectly wholesome, perfectly effective, and I have to say that some of the chiefs of staff were fairly robust about the newspaper stories because of the way in which they were presented.

Q55  Mr Hancock: So flak jackets and boots did not feature in any of the complaints you received?

Mr Hoon: I have indicated that I am sure it is possible that the occasional soldier was not supplied -----

Q56  Mr Hancock: With a flak jacket?

Mr Hoon: Let us deal with the boots. The occasional soldier was not supplied with the right size desert boots on the particular day that the story appeared in the newspaper, but the truth is that when they went into operations all of our forces were given the right boots. There was sufficient clothing and protective equipment in theatre to deal with a force of this size. I will look to the Committee to make its assessments and I certainly would be delighted if the Committee wished to interview any of the logisticians responsible of this operation. I have talked to them. I do not judge them to be people who would dissemble when faced with those kinds of criticism because those kinds of criticism damage their own sense of professional ability and they have a very strong sense of their own professional qualities and were absolutely determined on the occasions when I spoke to them to make absolutely clear that there were not those kinds of difficulties, but the Committee clearly is in a position to make its own judgment about that.

Rachel Squire: I think the Committee may well wish to interview those and follow up this campaign.

Q57  Mr Cran: Secretary of State, I wonder if you could talk to us a little about the civil/military interface? This is a very important aspect of an operation like this that is seldom, if ever, seen and we know little about it. The Government have a War Cabinet. Maybe "War Cabinet" is a press word for it, I do not know, but there was some mechanism that had a central role in all of this. Could you set out for the Committee the structure of the political-military decision-making and also the role and the membership of the War Cabinet or whatever it was called? If you want to send us the structure stuff after the event, fine.

Mr Hoon: I think I can probably summarise it but I am grateful for the opportunity of setting it out in more detail if that is necessary. Obviously, there were regular discussions in Cabinet. I reported regularly to my Cabinet colleagues, as did other members of the Cabinet with obvious responsibilities for the conduct of the wider operations, particularly the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development. In addition, there was the so-called War Cabinet which met regularly, most directly involving those who had departmental responsibilities relevant to what was taking place but involving other senior Cabinet Ministers as well. In addition to that I would have daily meetings with the Prime Minister together with the Chief of Defence Staff and others directly engaged in the day-to-day handling of the conflict. That tended to follow meetings in the Ministry of Defence where I met with the Chief of the Defence Staff and others in the direct chain of command responsible for the conflict. In addition there were meetings of the chiefs and indeed I had another daily meeting at the other end of the day in order to catch up with any events that had occurred in a theatre that was three hours ahead of us. Basically, that was the political structure in the sense of the structure involving politicians.

Q58  Mr Cran: And you are satisfied, with the benefit of hindsight, which is always accurate, that the structure met the needs of the operations that we are talking about?

Mr Hoon: It is something that I am certainly prepared to look at as part of our process of considering what further action might be necessary in the context of future conflicts, but from my own experience of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, even the tail end of operations in Kosovo, I had a major role in the designing of the structure, certainly as far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned and, although I am prepared to look again at the structures we developed, I think that they delivered what we needed, which is an understanding of how the conflict was developing whilst at the same time a recognition that there are political decisions that have to be taken from time to time as a conflict unfolds.

Q59  Mr Cran: You have played a key role in the whole exercise, at least at the political level. I wonder if you could tell the Committee what your relationship was with the military commanders in the field. In other words, were you an interferer as, when we read these things, sometimes people are, or did you tell them to get on with it? Did they consult you in whatever parameters you laid down?

Mr Hoon: I certainly judge that the role of the Secretary of Defence in this case is to be aware of the wider nature of the planning, to be aware of the way in which a conflict is unfolding but not to interfere in a detailed manner in the actual conduct of it. The practical mechanism for contact with commanders in the field is through the Permanent and Joint Headquarters at Northwood and the process of meeting with the relevant chain of command was conducted through the Permanent Joint Headquarters by a video link into the Ministry of Defence on at least a twice daily basis.

Q60  Mr Cran: So on what sort of issues, if you are at liberty to tell us and to put the question the other way, would the military commanders in the field feel obliged to come back to MoD in London and therefore perhaps, by extension, to you?

Mr Hoon: All my experience would not suggest that there is quite that neat delineation of responsibility in the sense that this is a team of people who work together in the preparation of military plans, who work together in their execution and who continue to work together in looking at further military operations. I do not think you can break it down quite as neatly as your question suggests. I would have regular reports from theatre. I might raise questions from time to time as to what was happening and why it was happening. Perhaps something would come up that I was aware of that needed addressing, but not in the static way, if you will forgive me for saying so, that your question suggested. This is a process and it is a process that moved along at pretty high speed in this conflict, and there was never an occasion on which ministers were sitting back thinking about a decision whilst military commanders were waiting for the answer. If a decision needed to be taken it was taken very quickly.

Q61  Mr Cran: I was tempted for my last question to ask you what the key decisions were that you took, but I think I am going to wait for your memoirs to read about what they were.

Mr Hoon: You may wait a long time.

Q62  Mr Cran: Let us wait and see. What I am going to ask you instead is about the relationship you had with your opposite number in the Pentagon because there was quite a lot of press comment, speculation - who knows? - right or wrong. I have no idea. Could you tell us what the relationship was and what was the extent of your contact? Was it daily? What was it?

Mr Hoon: It was certainly very regular. I could not say to the Committee that it was daily. There were times when every day we spoke but there were other times when that was not necessary. Bear in mind that I would meet with the Defence Secretary in the United States on a pretty regular basis even before Iraq was a direct and specific issue, so our relationship goes back rather further than this particular context. We have always been able to speak frankly and openly to each other and part of the reason for that is that we do not disclose the contents of those conversations, but I can assure you that there was excellent co-ordination at every level between the Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon.

Q63  Mr Cran: So it was a harmonious relationship despite the comment that I think was Mr Rumsfeld's, "We like the Brits but they are not really necessary", if I recall the general quote?

Mr Hoon: I think that is an unfair summary of what he actually said. Donald is a very astute observer of the political situation, particularly in this country, and he knew, as I knew, and as members of this Committee knew, that there were certain constitutional conventions following decisions of the House of Commons. I think you will find if you look carefully at what he actually said that he was simply aware of the impending vote in the House of Commons, as were we all.

Q64  Syd Rapson: The trigger for war was the "opportunity" assassination strike on the Iraq leadership on the night of the 19 March. How far did that pre-empt the very careful planning that was ongoing at that time?

Mr Hoon: I think it is fair to say that it accelerated certain decisions that were in any event going to be implemented very shortly. I have emphasised already in my opening statement the importance of preserving, for example, the infrastructure of Iraq for the future of the Iraqi people and certainly the strike of 19 March made sure that we were focused on the preservation, especially in the south, in our specific area of operation, of that infrastructure and took decisions accordingly.

Q65  Syd Rapson: Did that particular strike, that caught us all out, and I am sure it caught the Iraqi leadership out, bring forward the Royal Marine attack on the Al Faw peninsular on the 20^th?

Mr Hoon: When you say "bring forward", there was no difficulty. Those forces were poised and ready to do the important job on the Al Faw peninsular and begin the move north. As I say, there was some acceleration in the timescales but essentially we are talking hours rather than days.

Q66  Mr Howarth: As operations progressed, Secretary of State, what were your greatest concerns?

Mr Hoon: Winning.

Q67  Mr Howarth: That was your concern at the outset, but it looked at times as if it was going to be a bit more difficult.

Mr Hoon: It carried on being my concern.

Q68  Mr Howarth: There were times when it was looking less easy than first appeared to be the case.

Mr Hoon: I have never ever believed that military conflict is easy. The risks, the uncertainties, the unpredictabilities, the danger of what we are asking people to become involved in should never lead anyone to assume that it is easy and I have never done so in any of the operations in which I have been involved.

Q69  Mr Howarth: Some commentators have suggested that the force that we sent was the maximum that we could have put together. In the event that it had not gone as well as it did and we had been in a much more prolonged campaign, what contingency plans did you have for reinforcements, or were you going to rely upon the United States?

Mr Hoon: I would need you to be a little more specific about length, because we went through this as I recall when Mr Mercer asked me these questions in a Question Time. We had a balanced force, we knew that that force could remain in theatre, as it is doing, for a reasonable length of time to conduct not only combat operations but also any follow-on of humanitarian operations. Clearly, had the conflict gone on for what, with the benefit of hindsight, would have been a very long time, going into many months, we would then have had to make judgments about the replacement in particular of combat forces because clearly it would not be reasonable to expect combat forces to maintain that high intensity conflict for large numbers of months. We would then have made decisions as to how to replace them. That would have been possible and continues to be possible and in due course we will be replacing some of those forces in theatre.

Q70  Mr Howarth: You did have contingency plans therefore to do that?

Mr Hoon: We could have done so. We could have found other forces if necessary but, as I think I made clear to Patrick when he raised it with me, I would prefer not to have to do so, and that remains the case. As it is, we have not needed to do so in the way that I have just set out to you because the conflict did not last for very many months and the kinds of replacements that we will be sending into theatre in due course will be replacements that can be managed from our existing resources.

Q71  Mr Howarth: It is replacements, not reinforcements, which is the key issue here. There is a sense in which some commentators feel that we got away with it and that, for example, had we faced an enemy which had an air force - the Iraqis had none -----

Mr Hoon: They did have an air force. They chose not to use it.

Q72  Mr Howarth: Half of it was exported to Iran. I think you will agree that they presented no credible air power, but had we had to contain some of that do you not agree that we would have been facing a rather different situation in which we might have taken a rather high level of casualties and would have needed reinforcements?

Mr Hoon: I do not accept that because the forces that we made available in coalition with the Untied States were forces designed to deal with the highest level of estimation of what the Iraqis could achieve. The force was specifically designed on the most optimistic assumptions of what Iraq could throw at us.

Q73  Mr Howarth: You mean the most pessimistic assumptions?

Mr Hoon: Optimistic from their point of view: what they could manage in terms of a military response to what we were going to put into theatre.

Q74  Mr Howarth: We were talking about reinforcements, Secretary of State, as you will recall, and obviously you touched on Operation Fresco, the firemen's strike, and you downgraded the requirement from 19,000 to 16,000, and it is now down to 9,000, but it is still a huge constraint on your ability to deploy. What were your plans in the event that the firemen had gone on strike in the middle of all this because my constituents who are in the Armed Forces are pretty fed up with this Operation Fresco nonsense, so can you tell us that? Can you also just tell us why you are withdrawing regular personnel and leaving reservists out there?

Mr Hoon: Can I, I am afraid, again dispute with you the premise. We did deploy and we deployed very successfully, even though 19,000 of our forces had been earmarked for emergency firefighting duties, so there was no difficulty about the deployment caused by Operation Fresco and the deployment was extremely successful, so I am not sure I really need to comment further on the balance of your question. The premise that you set out was wrong. As far as reservists are concerned, generally speaking, the principle will be that any reservist deployed alongside regular forces who are returning to the United Kingdom will return with them. The whole point about integrating our reservists into regular forces, consistent with the SDR, is that they are usable and when the regular forces have completed their operations, they will return with those regular forces. There are some limited exceptions to that mainly in the medical field, but the purpose of leaving medical reservists in theatre is to give regular medical forces a break so that they can then return to theatre, relieving the reservists in the process, so that is an exception, but, generally speaking, the principle will be that reservists will return with the regular forces to which they are attached.

Rachel Squire: As you know, the Committee always takes a keen interest in the issue of reservists and also medical units, so I think that may be one we come back to, but I am aware that the time that we have left is very short, so can we move on.

Q75  Patrick Mercer: May I talk, Secretary of State, about British operations in western Iraq. What was the extent of scud activity in western Iraq?

Mr Hoon: None.

Q76  Patrick Mercer: Were any launches forestalled?

Mr Hoon: There were certainly launches. Missiles fell on Kuwait and some fell into the water near Kuwait and quite a number were destroyed by patriot missile batteries in northern Kuwait, but I am not aware of any of those being launched from what I would generally take to be western Iraq.

Q77  Patrick Mercer: Can you tell us whether any launchers were found in western Iraq?

Mr Hoon: I cannot, no.

Q78  Patrick Mercer: What was the role of British forces in western Iraq?

Mr Hoon: By the way, I could, but I cannot!

Q79  Patrick Mercer: Yes, I understand that. What was the role of British forces in western Iraq?

Mr Hoon: By and large, the forces deployed in western Iraq were special forces and I am not going to go into the detail of what they were doing

.

Q80  Patrick Mercer: And the same question for northern Iraq.

Mr Hoon: Same answer.

Q81  Patrick Mercer: Did the United Kingdom special forces act as independent units or joint forces along with the United States special forces?

Mr Hoon: Again I am not going to go into that kind of operational detail, save to say that there was a coalition effort involving not only forces from the United Kingdom and the United States, but also from at least one other country.

Rachel Squire: I was going to ask some questions about equipment systems and what had worked well and what had not worked so well, but in fact, because of the time constraints, I think we will look to take evidence on that from other witnesses and certainly write to yourself, Secretary of State, if we need to. We can, therefore, move on to friendly-fire incidents.

Q82  Jim Knight: Like others before it, the conflict produced victims of so-called 'friendly fire' and, as I understand it, it is fairly common, particularly in the early stages of a conflict, that those sorts of incidents should happen. What have your investigations of the incidents of UK forces being hit revealed about the causes, whether there are any common threads to those causes and to what extent is friendly fire a particular problem of combined coalition operations?

Mr Hoon: Those investigations are still under way and I think it would be wrong at this stage to preempt their conclusions by making even tentative suggestions as to causation. Certainly those investigations will be rigorous and will involve, where relevant, coalition forces in the widest sense. In answer to your second question, I think it is fair to say, sadly, and I recognise that the relatives of those killed will not make this kind of distinction, that there were friendly-fire incidents involving mixed forces, US on UK, there were friendly-fire incidents involving US on US and there were friendly-fire incidents involving UK on UK.

Q83  Jim Knight: But none UK on US?

Mr Hoon: Not that I am aware of, but I think it does demonstrate the accidental nature of this. I am not using that word in its light way, but in the way that is proper. These were unlooked-for incidents, despite very determined efforts made, certainly as far as the technology provision was concerned, to use all the efforts that we could to avoid them, but the real answer to your question is that I cannot see, from what took place, that there is any pattern that suggests that this is the result of coalition-style operations.

Q84  Jim Knight: If combat identification had been successfully rolled out some time ago, as was originally planned, do you think those incidents would have been reduced?

Mr Hoon: Well, I do not believe so. Using the example of the Challenger 2 tank attacking another Challenger 2 tank, and there is an investigation and I am not in any way prejudging that investigation's conclusions, but from what I know of that incident, a tank thought it was under attack, it wheeled round very quickly and fired a shell at what it thought to be the enemy. It proved to be a British tank. I cannot see that any level of technological innovation could avoid that kind of incident taking place. If there is such an innovation, then certainly we will vigorously investigate it, but I cannot see, at the present levels of technology, that being easy to see a solution to, which is why I have consistently emphasised, when this question has been raised in the House of Commons, that there is no simple, single technological solution to these problems.

Q85  Jim Knight: But combat identification projects are still underway 12 years after the last Gulf War when they were first identified, are they not?

Mr Hoon: But we do have identification systems. I do not believe that that is the problem. Part of the efforts that we made once we knew that we were potentially going into military operations alongside the United States, I was determined to ensure that we had comparable equipment, particularly in this area. The issue is not just the system, and there are reasons why NATO has failed to produce a common system, but bear in mind that at the level of NATO, we are talking about a common system for all NATO members and that is part of the problem, but as between the US and the UK we had compatible systems that should have delivered appropriate information. They did not because other factors supervened, not least the understandable factor of the intensity of battle and human reactions when people consider that they are under attack.

Q86  Jim Knight: You may be awaiting the outcome of those investigations, but is there anything that you are doing now to prevent future fratricidal incidents?

Mr Hoon: Well, there is a long-term effort obviously to get as many allies as possible agreeing on a single system, so if we had to conduct high-intensity combat operations next week, then I believe that the systems we put in place for operations in Iraq were the best available. That is not to say that they will not evolve and we will look to other systems in the future to replace them, but for the moment we have committed ourselves, I believe rightly, to having the best equipment that we could lay our hands on.

Q87  Mr Crausby: It is accepted, Secretary of State, that you reported to the House that cluster bombs were used in Iraq and you have consistently argued that more suitable weapons would be used in order to defend our forces, but it was predictable, because of the controversial nature of cluster bombs, that the Government would be criticised in their use regardless of the circumstances. For the record, could you tell the Committee in what circumstances were cluster bombs deployed in Iraq and why was their use essential?

Mr Hoon: Essentially cluster bombs are an effective weapon against what are known as wide-area targets, so for armoured columns, groups of lighter-skim vehicles, cluster bombs are extraordinarily effective. I think one of the issues that those criticising the use of cluster bombs have to face up to is not only the impact on our own forces if we fail to prosecute an attack in those circumstances where we had a suitable weapon, but, for example, what would then happen if we dropped much heavier equipment, and clearly there are heavier bombs and the bomb that comprises a cluster bomb, we would have to drop many more such weapons with the obvious and consistent consequence that some of those might fail with still more catastrophic consequences. I am not suggesting that we are in any way other than extraordinarily sensitive to the potential impact of unexploded ordnance. We keep records of where cluster bombs have been used and, as I have repeatedly said, it is, generally speaking, British servicemen and women who are charged with the task of clearing up those sites..

Q88  Mr Crausby: What steps did the Government take to learn lessons from the previous use of cluster bombs, for example, changing their colour, limiting their use to certain types of terrain and installing deactivation devices?

Mr Hoon: All of these types of thing have been done in the very latest generation still only just coming through into service. There are failsafe devices and timing mechanisms that mean that the bomblets, if they fail to explode on impact, which is how they are designed to operate, will explode of their own accord, but those newer munitions are only just coming through into service.

Q89  Mr Crausby: So could you tell us what steps you are taking to locate and deactivate unexploded bomblets and could you also tell us what assistance you are giving to the United Nations in mapping the locations of unexploded ordnance?

Mr Hoon: Well, at this stage it is not a responsibility of the United Nations. I accept that it is a responsibility of coalition forces and, as I have indicated, we have kept records of where these kinds of munitions have been used, but I think it is important not to just be fixated on cluster weapons. There are a range of munitions, many dating back years, if not decades, in Iraq that are a continuing threat to the Iraqi people and we are deploying forces to be able to deal with that. It is part of the effort to make Iraq a safer and more secure place, so it is not just cluster weapons that we are dealing with, but there are any number of unexploded weapons in Iraq that we are making safe, but it will take time.

Q90  Mr Crausby: What steps have you taken to secure munitions stockpiles in Basra?

Mr Hoon: I do not have specific details about that, but I am confident that that is something that is being attended to by British forces. I will write to you if that answer is wrong.

Rachel Squire: Given that we only have another 15 minutes left, I am going to make myself universally unpopular by saying that we will skip the questions on the role of the media, POWs and military and Iraqi public servant cooperation. We will certainly take those issues up in future evidence sessions and, if necessary, write to you, Secretary of State. I think we will focus the time we have left on the two key issues, the one of the cost of the whole campaign and the other on how long our British forces are likely to remain in Iraq. In fact can we start with that.

Q91  Patrick Mercer: Secretary of State, we hear reports of a brigade and a divisional headquarters being in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Can you confirm that?

Mr Hoon: Well, there is a continuing need for British forces to be deployed in Iraq, but we are making appropriate adjustments, as I have regularly reported to the House of Commons, in the first place withdrawing those forces whose job has been completed, particularly from the Air Force, Royal Marines, Ark Royal, submarines, and a range of assets are either back or nearly back home. There is a different kind of military operation underway to ensure the security and stability of Iraq in this obviously difficult period in the aftermath of a conflict. Some forces engaged in combat are participating in those tasks and in due course they will be replaced. They will also be joined in due course by forces from other countries and, as the Committee may well be aware, we had a very successful meeting recently with a number of countries already who have indicated their willingness to send the right kinds of forces to help in the work that is needed now. I say "the right kind" because they will largely be of a very specialist kind. One of the reasons why it is impossible to answer that question with any kind of precision is that it does depend on the circumstances, but I believe that the kind of contribution that forces can make in Iraq now, particularly in the south, which is calm, stable, increasingly secure for the population, is in that specialist area, following on from the previous question, making sure that the range of unexploded ordnance from a series of conflicts in which Iraq has been involved over many years are made safe for the safety and security of the population, and increasing efforts to guarantee the utilities to make sure that there is no shortage of food in a country which has been largely dependent on UN assistance over very many years, so there are a range of tasks that military forces can be involved in. From my point of view, the sooner those tasks are completed, the better, but I recognise that we do have a continuing responsibility to Iraq until we achieve the kind of stability that gives us the confidence that the Iraqi people themselves are in a position to take up where we are leaving off.

Q92  Patrick Mercer: If you were a betting man, Secretary of State, and I am sure you are not---

Mr Hoon: I am not.

Q93  Patrick Mercer: ---- what sort of duration do you think we might be right to prepare for in terms of a largish commitment of British soldiers, sailors and airmen?

Mr Hoon: I could repeat what I have just said to the Committee, but I do not think that would help.

Q94  Mr Hancock: It is a very interesting point you raised there and it is a compliment to our Armed Forces in the south of Iraq that there was a quietness about the place which is not universal across the country, particularly around Baghdad, but because of the success of the British military in being able to secure that calmer atmosphere in that area, do you see our role as actually being one that was spread further across Iraq and maybe to replace the presence of the Americans who seem to be universally unpopular wherever they are located in Iraq at the present time?

Mr Hoon: I think that is a very unfair characterisation of what has taken place in Baghdad. Baghdad is undoubtedly a more difficult place. It has a more diverse population, it is and has been historically, as far as the recent history of Iraq is concerned, the centre of power in Iraq and, not surprisingly, therefore, it was the centre for Saddam's regime as much as it has been the centre for previous governments of Iraq. Therefore, the problems faced by coalition forces in Baghdad are inevitably more intense than they are elsewhere in the country, so I do not accept that there is universal criticism in the way that you describe, not least, and this may only be anecdotal, but I had two Iraqi citizens in my constituency office last week from Baghdad thanking me for the efforts that coalition forces had made and that meant American forces, so I do not believe that there is that kind of difference. What there is is a difference in the circumstances that US forces in Baghdad have to deal with and I think it is more understandable when they are being routinely shot at that there is a more difficult security environment.

Q95  Mr Hancock: Have you had no request for British Armed Forces to be further extended into Iraq and into other areas? Have the Americans asked you to consider the possibility of replacing some of their forces in the area of Baghdad with UK forces?

Mr Hoon: There are enormously more American soldiers, I do not have a figure readily to hand, it is around 100,000.

Q96  Mr Hancock: I did not ask for the numbers, I said have any requests been made to you to extend the role of British Armed Forces in Iraq at the present time.

Mr Hoon: Not from the United States, no.

Q97  Mr Hancock: From anyone? From the Iraqi people who might be in a position to have some say in it?

Mr Hoon: It depends how broadly you take the question of request. I have seen suggestions, published sources, that UK forces should extend their area of operations. I do not believe that that is practical, sensible or, for the moment at any rate, necessary.

Q98  Mr Hancock: But you have had that request from some of them?

Mr Hoon: I have not had any formal requests, no. I have seen suggestions. I think I have just heard another one.

Rachel Squire: Can we move on to what has to be our final issue and that is one of the whole costs of the campaign. Mr Roy, as the canny Scot I allow you to come in first on that.

Q99  Mr Roy: The Treasury made a £3 billion contingency reserve available for additional costs in Iraq and up to the financial year 2002/03 only £1 billion has been identified. Will you need the further £2 billion and what for?

Mr Hoon: I think it is too soon to say essentially this was a provision, if you like these were drawing rights available to the Ministry of Defence for conducting operations in Iraq. A significant amount of money has already been spent. It depends on how long operations continue, but it will take some time before we are in a position to be able to say what are the precise costs, I think it is too soon yet to make that judgment.

Q100  Mr Roy: I am thinking not only of the costs that you have already incurred, but after the lessons learned from Iraq presumably the MoD will then have more need for different types of long-term capability. Do you think you will then be able to bid for that extra money, not for the money that you have spent but the money that the lessons are saying you need to invest?

Mr Hoon: My assumption would be that we will be able to draw down from the money that is available the costs of current operations and continuing operations. There will then be a lessons learned process, as there has been in all previous conflicts, which may well identify further equipment, reorganisation, training, perhaps a range of potential extra costs that we will have to address. My assumption will be that we will do that within the normal arrangements that exist for the funding of government departments.

Q101  Mr Roy: Finally, maybe a bit of conflict prevention would have helped, it may even have stopped the need for the war. Do you think any department, such as DFID or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, would be able to tap in to what you do not need of the £3 billion?

Mr Hoon: Can I understand this clearly? You are suggesting that money allocated to defence should be spent on other government departments. We do have a joint budget for conflict prevention and the Ministry of Defence does subscribe to that budget, as do the other departments and I am sure that will go on.

Mr Roy: Thank you very much.

Q102  Rachel Squire: Can I draw the Committee meeting to a close there. Can I thank the Secretary of State very much for this evidence session. There were a number of areas which due to time constraints we were unable to touch on but which we will certainly be following up in writing to you as well as taking evidence in further sessions. I think the areas that we did manage to touch on are ones that we will continue to pursue either through evidence sessions or in writing. Can I once again thank you very much indeed for your time this afternoon.

Mr Hoon: Could I in turn thank the Committee, thank you very much.