[A-List] UK military: ill-equipped

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Delays push troops out of key Iraq role
Combat conditions will be more arduous after Desert Rats hold-up, writes IAN
BRUCE
The Herald, 17 January 2003

SENIOR military sources warned yesterday that British troops will not
spearhead any victorious advance on Baghdad this spring because delays in
authorising the deployment of the UK's 7th "Desert Rats" Armoured Brigade
mean that it will arrive too late to take part in any campaign.

The 114 Challenger 2 tanks and scores of Warrior fighting vehicles, at bases
in Germany but earmarked for service in the Gulf, have not yet been fitted
with vital sand filters to enable them to operate in desert conditions.

The work is now to be carried out if and when the vehicles are finally
shipped to Kuwait, imposing more delay on unit preparations already weeks
behind schedule.

In the 1991 Gulf war, it took up to 10 days of all-out effort by crews and
mechanics to prepare each regiment of 57 tanks for desert conditions.
Despite the high-profile dispatch of flotillas of warships in the past few
days, Britain has still to commit any of the heavy equipment or manpower
needed for a fast-moving ground war.

"Even if 7 Brigade receives its marching orders in the next week, it will
then have to move to the port of Hamburg to begin loading its vehicles
before embarking on a two to three-week journey to ports in the Gulf," a
source said last night.

"The bulk of its 5000 men and women soldiers will be flown out to marry up
with their equipment, but will need two to four weeks in theatre to
acclimatise, desertise their tanks, and carry out live-firing exercises to
ensure their weapons are zeroed in for the life-or-death marksmanship of
combat.

"The Iraqi summer begins at the end of March, by which time temperatures are
climbing steadily through April from 70 degrees to beyond 100 degrees
Fahrenheit."

The source said men forced to work and fight in the stifling, airtight suits
designed to protect them against nerve gas or germ warfare became dehydrated
in less than an hour and suffered from heat prostration in another hour.

"Although it is theoretically possible to mount operations under these
conditions, they would, of necessity, be carried out at a very slow tempo.
The bottom line is that the window of opportunity for a major British
contribution to any war has already closed."

HMS Ark Royal, the flagship aircraft carrier which sailed from Scotland
yesterday after taking on stores and ammunition, is carrying only
helicopters and no Sea Harrier jet fighters or Harrier GR7 bombers. Unless
vertical-landing, short take-off aircraft are added later, the ship has no
offensive strike capabilities.

Designed as a submarine-hunter during the cold war confrontation with the
Soviet Union's powerful fleet, Ark Royal is too small to launch Tornado or
Jaguar fighter-bombers, the only jets with the range and weapons' payload
needed to penetrate deep into Iraq from the sea.

The single Royal Navy fleet submarine deployed to the potential war zone is
capable of launching Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, but only in small
numbers. The UK has fewer than 70 of the £400,000 missiles available in
total and the US has none to spare after depleting its own stocks during the
Afghan campaign.

HMS Ocean, the Navy's biggest warship, is also en route. The Clyde-built
helicopter assault ship is carrying 300 Royal Marines. This could be
increased to include an entire commando group of 600 men. It has enough Sea
King transport helicopters - known as "junglies" - to put the entire force
ashore in two to three waves, but lacks range for anything more than a
coastal assault in southern Iraq.

Clive Fairweather, the longest-serving surviving SAS officer and a special
forces' adviser during the 1991 conflict, said: "It's likely that the US
wants a token UK contingent to give legitimacy to any attack it chooses to
make without UN authorisation.

"That might be a squadron of Tornado air defence fighters flying top-cover
for American bombers against a non-existent Iraqi air force. That would be
enough to justify headlines declaring a 'joint' allied effort.

"With the timing for a ground campaign in reasonable temperatures now ebbing
away, any heavier British land forces would appear to be destined for
guarding prisoners or as part of an army of occupation. Barring a miracle,
they won't be the first threat to Saddam."

Meanwhile, the US has deployed 600 soldiers and "several batteries" of
improved Patriot anti-missile launchers to help defend Israel against
possible Iraqi last-ditch Scud strikes in the event of a war to overthrow
Saddam Hussein.

The deployment, officially an exercise, has been timed to allow the Patriot
units to link in with Israel's new Arrow high-altitude interceptor system,
to provide a two-tier layer of defence in which the Americans would try to
shoot down any missiles which slipped through the initial Israeli response
to attack.

The UN arms inspectors who left Baghdad in 1998 said Saddam probably still
had up to 24 Scud missiles capable of hitting Israel from western Iraq.

The weapons can be tipped with warheads containing nerve gas or biological
toxins as well as high explosive.

A Pentagon study drawn up to give the White House guidance on the political
bodybag factor expected from a new desert war shows US and British troops
who might be in action in Iraq have more chance of being killed in "friendly
fire" incidents or road crashes than by enemy weapons.

The document shows 24% of US combat deaths and 15% of serious wounds in the
Gulf conflict were caused by failure to identify targets as hostile before
tanks or aircraft opened fire in the heat of battle.

Larry Seaquist, a retired US navy commander and a Pentagon strategist, said
yesterday: "We may be able to see people and machines in the dark, but we
cannot yet tell whether they are hostiles or friendlies.

"That's how people get cut down by their own side. Expect a lot more of the
same if we go back into Iraq."