Possible scenarios: at the death
11. In the last resort Saddam is likely to order the indiscriminate use of whatever chemical and biological weapons remain available to him, in a last attempt to cling on to power or to cause as much damage as possible in a final act of vengeance. If he has not already done so by this stage Saddam will launch CBW attacks on Israel. Implementation of such orders would depend on the delivery means still remaining, the survivability of the command chain and the willingness of commanders to obey.
Notes
1 . Richard Aldrich, ‘Whitehall and the Iraq War: The UK’s Four Intelligence Enquiries’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 16 (2005), p. 77.
2 . Lord Butler of Brockwell, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report (London: The Stationery Office, 2004), pp. 43–5, 52, 55.
3 . Tony Blair quoted ibid., p. 63.
4 . Private Information.
5 . Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction , p. 70.
6 . Readers are strongly recommended to also examine Lord Butler of Brockwell, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Annex B: Intelligence Assessment and Presentation: From March to September 2002 (London: The Stationery Office, 2004), pp. 163–76.
7 . Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction , pp. 72–5.
8 . Ibid., p. 72.
9 . Rory Cormac, Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 130–1.
10 . Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction , p. 80.
11 . Ibid., pp. 76–8; Aldrich, ‘Whitehall and the Iraq War’, pp. 80, 82.
12 . Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction , pp. 76–8.
13 . For an overview of the various schools of thought regarding the dossier see Steven Kettell, ‘Who’s Afraid of Saddam Hussein? Re-examining the “September Dossier” Affair’, Contemporary British History 22/3 (2008), p. 409.
14 . John N. L. Morrison, ‘British Intelligence Failures in Iraq’, Intelligence and National Security 26/4 (2011), p. 515.
15 . Anthony Seldon, Blair Unbound (London: Simon and Schuster, 2007), p. 140.
16 . Lord Butler quoted in Peter Taylor, ‘Iraq: The spies who fooled the world’, BBC News website, 18 March 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21786506 (last accessed 13 November 2013).
17 . Tony Blair quoted in The Iraq War: Regime Change , BBC Two, 29 May 2013.
18 . Iraq Survey Group, a multi-national fact-finding mission sent to Iraq after the invasion to search for WMD.
19 . Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report, 2004–2005 , Cm 6510 (Norwich: HMSO, 2005), pp. 23–4.
20 . Jean Chrétien, My Years as Prime Minister (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2007), pp. 306–13.
20
WAR IN IRAQ: AFTERMATH 1
O N 19 MARCH 2003, American-led forces invaded Iraq. Less than six weeks later, speaking alongside a banner that read ‘Mission Accomplished’, President Bush triumphantly declared victory over Saddam Hussein. Yet British combat operations in the country only ended in 2009. The aftermath of the invasion saw a series of vicious insurgencies sweep across Iraq. Accordingly, British forces swiftly became embroiled in a difficult counterinsurgency campaign against Shia militia in southern Iraq. In addition to attacking the British, rival militant groups fought each other for power within the regional vacuum. Like the Americans elsewhere in Iraq, British planners and security forces were unprepared.
Broader questions must therefore be asked of intelligence. The role of the JIC was not limited to establishing whether Iraq had WMD (as discussed in the previous chapter). The committee also issued assessments on the aftermath of the invasion. For example, Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, commissioned a JIC paper at the start of 2003. She asked the committee to assess the situation in southern Iraq before and during an invasion, as well as to predict what might happen after any military action. The final report, issued on 19 February 2003 – one month before the invasion – is reproduced here. Overall, the JIC warned of an unpredictable security and political situation. It predicted a high risk of revenge attacks against former regime officials as well as a settling of scores between armed tribal groups in the region. The committee also warned that the Shia population needed to be involved in any future government of Iraq to ensure popular support for the post-Saddam administration. It played down concerns about Iranian-inspired terrorism as unlikely. There is no mention of al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.
The JIC highlighted five policy implications of its assessment. In doing so, it drew the government’s attention to the importance of swift humanitarian aid, peace enforcement and winning over the local population. Further intelligence followed. In March 2003, the JIC cautioned that al-Qaeda might have ‘established sleeper cells in Iraq to be activated after the coalition operation’. 2 The following month, the committee warned policymakers that ‘in the short term, for many Iraqis the details of the post-Saddam political process will be less important than a restoration of public order and the start of reconstruction’. Putting the issue incredibly bluntly, the JIC stated that ‘the Iraqi population will blame the coalition if progress is slow. Resentment could lead to violence.’ 3
JIC assessments reached the Prime Minister. The committee’s Chairman, John Scarlett, made formal presentations of JIC material to the Cabinet’s Defence and Overseas Policy Committee, chaired by Tony Blair. Although these meetings were fairly infrequent, they did include discussions of Iraq. In addition, Scarlett regularly met with officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and ensured that Blair was kept updated on the latest intelligence. Indeed, Scarlett made a point of notifying David Manning, Blair’s foreign policy adviser, of the assessment reproduced here. Unfortunately, Scarlett cannot recall Blair’s reaction to the committee’s ‘blunt’ conclusions. David Omand, then Intelligence and Security Coordinator, suspected that this assessment was received as ‘part of the flow’. JIC material continued to regularly reach Number 10 as the war progressed. From mid-March, a ‘War Cabinet’, composed of an inner group of senior ministers, met daily. Every morning Scarlett began each meeting with an update of JIC intelligence. Although the JIC’s assessment on southern Iraq could perhaps be considered as too little too late, questions of insurgency and al-Qaeda sat heavily on the JIC’s agenda once the war was underway. 4
Referring to the JIC’s conclusions, Blair later recalled that the situation in southern Iraq was ‘obviously going to be unpredictable’. The JIC’s warnings were ‘right and important’ but given the overwhelming Shia dominance in the region, the Prime Minister thought it would be an ‘easier’ area of operation for Britain than elsewhere in Iraq. The committee’s assessment certainly did not put Blair off operating in Basra and the south. 5
Clearly the post-war planning fell short. Indeed, Tony Blair has openly admitted that this was a ‘failing’. 6 There are two interpretations, however, regarding the JIC’s role. The first is that the government acted upon intelligence assessments and did engage in planning, but the intelligence was flawed. The second is that the government ignored intelligence and planning was severely underdeveloped. Unsurprisingly the then Prime Minister subscribes to the former. He maintains that planning did take place. But according to Blair, it was unfortunately working on flawed assumptions that Iraq had a functioning bureaucracy and civil service. Moreover, plans overly focused on humanitarian and environmental issues related to the possibility of the use of chemical and biological weapons. 7 Interestingly, both of these misassumptions can be seen in the JIC document produced below. On the former, the committee wrote of ‘engaging the remains of the state bureaucracy in the South’. Such surviving networks of influence formed a group with which the JIC thought the British could work. On the latter, the committee specifically concluded that ‘we will have to deal with large numbers of displaced and hungry people, possibly contaminated or panicked by CBW use, at
a time when the UN is not fully prepared’.
Similarly, the JIC assessment can be accused of being vague and open to various interpretations. Its conclusions on Iran serve as a case in point. The JIC optimistically predicted that Iran was unlikely to be aggressive, and yet it also warned of Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs and noted links between Tehran and armed Shia groups in the south of Iraq. Blair himself has pointed out that the JIC got it wrong and one can arguably sympathise with him for being poorly advised. The JIC admitted that its intelligence on the region was limited. On the other hand, however, one can criticise Blair for not taking the JIC’s warnings seriously enough. Blair accuses his critics of using excessive hindsight. The JIC assessment made some prophetic points, but arguably only when the reader has the benefit of seeing what actually happened in Iraq. Indeed, Blair maintains that intelligence did not anticipate the eventual situation in Iraq. 8
The second interpretation suggests that the government ignored intelligence assessments and neglected planning. With hindsight, Blair has conceded that Britain could have planned more thoroughly for the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In May 2002 intelligence warned that al-Qaeda had sent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who went on to become leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq) into the country, but little was done about it. 9 In terms of broader post-war planning, Britain left a great deal to the Americans. 10 Despite the JIC’s assessments on southern Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) unashamedly focused its political and reconstruction efforts on Baghdad, leaving the south, according to a former British official operating in Iraq, ‘in danger of being starved of resources’. Meanwhile, the CPA’s short-lived predecessor, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, was branded an ‘unbelievable mess’ by London’s new envoy in Baghdad, John Sawyers. 11 In April 2003, the deputy chief of the Defence Intelligence Staff told the House of Commons: ‘I am not aware of anything from my knowledge where we explicitly looked at how we should deal with policing in the aftermath of conflict.’ 12
Warnings from the JIC were certainly reinforced by other messages. Major General Tim Cross, the British officer tasked with reconstruction, was so concerned that on his return from a planning discussion in Washington in February 2003, he insisted on briefing the Prime Minister. ‘I did not believe postwar planning was anywhere near ready.’ Part of the problem was deep divisions within Blair’s Cabinet. Neither Clare Short nor Gordon Brown wished to devote significant resources to a war that they found distasteful, still less to cleaning up its aftermath. 13
British civil-military reconstruction efforts did see some initial moderate successes. The Emergency Infrastructure Plan, headed by the Department for International Development (DfID), funded the rebuilding of schools and hospitals. Distribution of money, however, was haphazard and efforts were effectively dissolved in 2004 as the security situation deteriorated. It was three long years until the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and DfID established a formal agency to coordinate British reconstruction efforts. 14 In the words of one analyst, Britain and the US operated ‘on the fly’. 15
The JIC did warn of potential hostilities in southern Iraq. Intelligence noted the importance of winning popular support through reconstruction efforts. However, it was somewhat vague and open to various interpretations. The British government lacked a sufficiently detailed assessment on the post-conflict situation whilst those assessments it did have appear to have been produced only fairly late in the day. This shaped government planning to an extent. Yet the government must also carry its fair share of responsibility. Warnings did eventually appear.
TOP SECRET DECLASSIFIED
JIC Asesssment, 19 February 2003
SOUTHERN IRAQ: WHAT’S IN STORE?
Key Judgements
I. The Iraqi forces currently guarding Southern Iraq are a relatively weak first line of conventional defence. They face rapid defeat. There is little evidence so far that the Iraqis are preparing for a hard-fought defence of Basra and other urban centres.
II. Southern Iraq is the most likely area for the first use of CBW against both coalition forces and the local population.
III. Coalition forces will face large refugee flows, possibly compounded by contamination and panic caused by CBW use. They may also face millions of Iraqis needing food and clean water without an effective UN presence and environmental disaster from burning oil wells.
IV. Iran does not have an agreed policy on Iraq beyond active neutrality. Nevertheless Iran may support small-scale cross-border interventions by armed groups to attack the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK). The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) will continue to meddle in Southern Iraq. Iranian reactions to a coalition presence in Southern Iraq remain unclear, but are unlikely to be aggressive.
V. Post-Saddam the security situation in the South will be unpredictable. There is a high risk of revenge killings of former regime officials. Law and order may be further undermined by settling of scores between armed tribal groups.
VI. Popular support for any post-Saddam administration in the South will depend on adequately involving the Shia in the government of Iraq as a whole as well as engaging the remains of the state bureaucracy in the South, local tribal leaders and Shia clerics in local government.
Policy Implications:
UN authorisation for a post-Saddam administration will be crucial.
We may have to deal with post-Saddam issues in Southern Iraq while fighting continues elsewhere. Offensive military action, provision of humanitarian aid and peace enforcement may have to be pursued simultaneously.
We will have to deal with large numbers of displaced and hungry people, possibly contaminated or panicked by CBW use, at a time when the UN is not fully prepared.
We will need to use all available means now and in future to win over the population and networks of influence in Southern Iraq.
We will need to avoid unhelpful intervention by the Iranians by doing what we can to take account of their interests and concerns, especially about the Turks, Kurds and MEK.
This paper was commissioned by OD Sec to look at the situation in Southern Iraq and what might happen there before, during and after any coalition military action. The paper covers Iraqi military disposition, likely Iraqi regime and popular reactions, Iranian policy and the possible political landscape in Southern Iraq post-Saddam .
Introduction
1. We have limited intelligence on the particular conditions of Southern Iraq. Where possible we have tried to show how Southern Iraq may differ from other parts of the country, but in order to give as full a picture as possible of the conditions there, we have also referred to intelligence describing conditions prevailing throughout the country.
Iraqi Military Dispositions
2. Southern Iraq is currently defended by the III and IV Corps of the regular Iraqi army. Security in the main urban centres is maintained by Iraq’s many security organisations. Unlike Central and Northern Iraq the regular army is not reinforced in the South by divisions of the elite Republican Guard, which are forbidden by UNSCR 949 from moving into the No Drive Zone south of the 32nd parallel. We previously judged that once military action begins, widespread lack of loyalty to the regime will become clear throughout Iraq. Reporting shows the regime particularly concerned about the lack of loyalty of the Shia, who make up a majority of conscripts in the regular army. The absence of the Republican Guard coupled with the regular army’s low morale, poor equipment and limited training mean the forces guarding Southern Iraq are a relatively weak first line of conventional defence. They face rapid defeat in the face of a massive military onslaught.
Southern Iraq: Basic Facts
Estimates suggest roughly 9 million people live in the nine provinces south and east of Baghdad (see map). The largest town is Basra (population 1.5 million). The area is populated by a wide variety of Arab Shia. Roughly half of Iraqi oil production comes from the oil fields of Southern Iraq. Southern Iraq includes Shia Islam’s two holiest cities, Najaf and Kerbal
a and Iraq’s only coastline, including the large port at Um Qasr.
3. [Intelligence] from mid-January indicates most elements of the 14th Infantry Division of IV Corps, supported by artillery, have redeployed southwards around al-Qurnah, a key town located at a strategic road junction. Other reporting indicates the redeployment of elements of the 18th Infantry division southwards to the Faw peninsula in mid-January, apparently to counter a possible amphibious landing there. [...] We know little about Iraqi plans for the defence of Basra, but there is as yet no sign of preparations for a hard-fought defence of this or other urban centres in Southern Iraq.
Iraqi Response to an Attack
4. Reporting indicates that the regime has contingency plans for a regional military command structure, if a coalition attack severed central control from Baghdad. Saddam has appointed his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid as regional commander of the southern sector of Southern Iraq (covering the provinces of Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan and Al-Muthanna) with authority over all forces in the area. Iraqi practice in the Iran/Iraq war suggests this would include tactical control over CBW. Ali is a loyal member of Saddam’s inner circle. He was a brutal Governor of occupied Kuwait in 1990/91. He also played a leading role in suppressing the Shia uprising in 1991 and Kurdish rebels in the late 1980s (using chemical weapons against the Kurds). His appointment may reflect an Iraqi leadership view that a particularly loyal and ruthless figure is needed to take command in the South in a crisis, both to suppress the Shia and to maintain discipline among the Iraqi forces. The relative weakness of Iraq’s conventional forces in the South and the fact that those forces will face the brunt of a coalition ground attack mean Southern Iraq is the most likely area for the first use of CBW against both coalition forces and the local population.
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