Iraq — National Audit Office Report on Operation Telic — 13 Jan 2004 at 15:42

Those voting No rejected the words of the motion put before Parliament, which read:

This House congratulates Her Majesty's Armed Forces on their outstanding contribution to the success of the Coalition campaign in Iraq; welcomes the positive findings of the National Audit Office Report on Operation TELIC -- United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq; endorses the conclusions and recommendations of that Report, but is gravely concerned about its criticisms of major deficiencies in the supply of vital equipment to UK forces in theatre; deplores the fact that approximately 200,000 sets of enhanced combat body armour issued since 1989 seem to have disappeared and that few troops received their full complement of the extra quantities of clothing and boots ordered from late 2002 onwards; is particularly appalled that there was a 40 per cent. shortfall in tactical nerve-agent detection systems, vital to alert personnel that an attack was underway, and that the operational filters needed to protect Challenger 2 tanks from radiological, chemical and biological attack were not delivered to frontline units until months after the fall of Saddam, given that the Government's casus belli was fear that the Iraqi regime possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that might be used at short notice; condemns as totally unacceptable the extreme peril to which these supply failures exposed service men and women, because of the perceived WMD danger; and calls upon the Government urgently to address the deficiencies identified in the Report.

The new motion that was proposed in its place, and then passed without a vote, read:

This House congratulates Her Majesty's Armed Forces on their outstanding contribution to the success of the Coalition campaign in Iraq; and welcomes the report of the National Audit Office "Operation TELIC -- United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq", which is consistent with the main conclusions of the Ministry of Defence's own report "Operations in Iraq -- Lessons for the Future".

Debate in Parliament | Historical Hansard | Source |