THE IMPACT OF AFGHANISTAN

¶720. In June 2004, the UK had made a public commitment to deploy HQ ARRC to Afghanistan in 2006, based on a recommendation from the Chiefs of Staff and Mr Hoon, and with Mr Straw's support. HQ ARRC was a NATO asset for which the UK was the lead nation and provided 60 percent of its staff.

¶721. It appears that senior members of the Armed Forces reached the view, throughout 2004 and 2005, that little more would be achieved in MND(SE) and that it would make more sense to concentrate military effort on Afghanistan where it might have greater effect.

¶722. In February 2005, the UK announced that it would switch its existing military effort in Afghanistan from the north to Helmand province in the south.

¶723. In 2002, A New Chapter, an MOD review of the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR), had reaffirmed that the UK's Armed Forces would be unable to support two enduring medium scale military operations at the same time:

"Since the SDR we have assumed that we should plan to be able to undertake either a single major operation (of a similar scale and duration to our contribution to the Gulf War in 1990‑91), or undertake a more extended overseas deployment on a lesser scale (as in the mid‑1990s in Bosnia), while retaining the ability to mount a second substantial deployment ... if this were made necessary by a second crisis. We would not, however, expect both deployments to involve war‑fighting or to maintain them simultaneously for longer than six months."252

¶724. As described in Section 16.1, since 2002 the Armed Forces had been consistently operating at or above the level of concurrency defined in the 1998 SDR, and the continuation of Op TELIC had placed additional strain on military personnel.

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¶725. By May 2005, the UK had been supporting an operation of at least medium scale in Iraq for more than two years. The Ministerial Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy Sub-Committee on Iraq (DOP(I)) recognised that future force levels in Iraq would need to be considered in the context of the requirement to achieve "strategic balance" with commitments in Afghanistan, to ensure that both were properly resourced.

¶726. In July 2005, DOP agreed proposals for both the transfer of the four provinces in MND(SE) to Iraqi control and for the deployment of the UK Provincial Reconstruction Team then based in northern Afghanistan to Helmand province in the South, along with an infantry battlegroup and full helicopter support – around 2,500 personnel.

¶727. As described under the heading 'Iraqiisation' below, the proposals to transfer responsibility for security in the four provinces of MND(SE) to Iraqi control were based on high‑risk assumptions about the capability of the Iraqi Security Forces to take the lead for security. If those assumptions proved to be inaccurate and the UK was unable to withdraw, agreement to the Helmand deployment in Afghanistan effectively constrained the UK's ability to respond by increasing troop levels in Iraq.

¶728. In January 2006, Cabinet approved the decision to deploy to Helmand. Dr Reid, the Defence Secretary, announced that the UK was "preparing for a deployment to southern Afghanistan" which included a Provincial Reconstruction Team as "part of a larger, more than 3,300‑strong British force providing the security framework".253

¶729. The impact of that decision was summarised neatly by Gen Walker as:

"Militarily, the UK force structure is already stretched and, with two concurrent medium scale operations in prospect, will soon become exceptionally so in niche areas."254

¶730. Niche capabilities such as helicopter support and Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) were essential to the successful conduct of operations.

¶731. From July 2005 onwards, decisions in relation to resources for Iraq were effectively made under the influence of the demands of the UK effort in Afghanistan. Although Iraq remained the stated UK main effort, the Government no longer had the option of a substantial reinforcement of its forces there, should it have considered one necessary. When the US announced in January 2007 that it would send a surge of resources to Iraq, the UK was consequently unable to contemplate a parallel surge of its own.

¶732. The impact of the decision to deploy to Helmand on the availability of key equipment capabilities for Iraq, and on the level of stretch felt by military personnel, is addressed in Sections 14 and 16.

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