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U.K. readies 10,000 reservists for war
Mass mobilization to step up pressure on Saddam Hussein
Michael Smith
The Daily Telegraph
Monday, November 04, 2002
LONDON -- The British government this week will order the mobilization of up to 10,000 reservists in preparation for a war with Iraq.
In a move not seen since the Korean War, a Queen‘s Order will give defence chiefs widespread and highly controversial rights to call up many more people than would normally be available.
Senior officers from all the units involved have been summoned to a meeting at the ministry of defence today to be briefed on the mass mobilization.
The announcement could come this afternoon with Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, answering a question in the Commons from a primed Labour backbencher.
The mobilization is part of continued attempts by Britain and the U.S. to increase the pressure on Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
The Queen‘s Order, which has to be signed by the Queen, will ensure that the armed forces have the largest possible pool of reservists to call upon.
It has been forced on the government after attempts to call up key personnel for the war in Afghanistan were thwarted by regulations that allowed reservists and employers to block the move.
Normally reservists are required to serve only six months in any two years. But a Queen‘s Order allows them to be called up indefinitely no matter how recently they served.
Some reservists now coming to the end of their six-month call-up as part of the war on terror will be told that they must remain serving. Others mobilized for the war in Afghanistan will be recalled.
It also means members of the Services discharged within the past 12 years and any reservists who left the reserve forces within the past five years are eligible for call-up.
"This is a very drastic measure," one source said. "It is what we would have done if the Russians invaded western Europe and for reasons of national survival.
"It opens up the number of people eligible and means all previous bets are off. There will be no arguments for not going on business or personal reasons and if you refuse the police are likely to come knocking on your door."
In theory, refusal to take part could result in a reservist being taken into military custody with the possibility of the call-up being challenged in the civilian courts.
It is unlikely that any single case would be allowed to go that far because of the risk of it becoming a cause celebre among anti-war campaigners.
The mobilization, which is expected to be matched in America this week, is seen as further pressure on Saddam.
The source said: "It was previously known simply as the coercion plan but is now known as ‘Force on Mind‘ with three components: credibility, timeliness and consequences.
"Saddam will know that no British effort can be credible without dependence on large numbers of troops. In order to do the job we have to make a mass call-up of reservists and this is it. It shows we could not be more serious."
Ministry of Defence plans to begin deploying a reduced strength armoured division and an aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf this month have been disrupted by Treasury complaints that it would cost too much.
But it is thought that ultimately Prime Minister Tony Blair would overrule the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown‘s objections and order the deployment to go ahead.
The government was wary of courting controversy with a Queen‘s Order and wanted to ask for volunteers. But defence chiefs said that would produce only a few hundred.
Logistics personnel from all three services will be among the first called up together with special forces, intelligence and signals reservists.
They will be followed by up to 10,000 other troops, some of them simply "backfilling" for troops deployed to the Gulf, others providing battlefield replacements for any troops killed or wounded in Iraq.
They will include specialists such as engineers and medics who have been stripped away from the Armed Forces by successive defence cuts, primarily the Options for Change introduced by the Major government in the early 1990s.
During the 1991 Gulf war only 1,500 reservists were called up but that was only achieved by gutting the army in Germany and the U.K. Cuts and commitments such as the firemen‘s strike mean a much larger call-up this time.
The ministry had planned to introduce the mobilization surreptitiously with an announcement made as call-up orders arrived on the door mats of the first reservists.
But when ministers were told that this would take two weeks they feared news might leak out early, causing even more controversy.
Mass mobilization to step up pressure on Saddam Hussein
Michael Smith
The Daily Telegraph
Monday, November 04, 2002
LONDON -- The British government this week will order the mobilization of up to 10,000 reservists in preparation for a war with Iraq.
In a move not seen since the Korean War, a Queen‘s Order will give defence chiefs widespread and highly controversial rights to call up many more people than would normally be available.
Senior officers from all the units involved have been summoned to a meeting at the ministry of defence today to be briefed on the mass mobilization.
The announcement could come this afternoon with Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, answering a question in the Commons from a primed Labour backbencher.
The mobilization is part of continued attempts by Britain and the U.S. to increase the pressure on Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
The Queen‘s Order, which has to be signed by the Queen, will ensure that the armed forces have the largest possible pool of reservists to call upon.
It has been forced on the government after attempts to call up key personnel for the war in Afghanistan were thwarted by regulations that allowed reservists and employers to block the move.
Normally reservists are required to serve only six months in any two years. But a Queen‘s Order allows them to be called up indefinitely no matter how recently they served.
Some reservists now coming to the end of their six-month call-up as part of the war on terror will be told that they must remain serving. Others mobilized for the war in Afghanistan will be recalled.
It also means members of the Services discharged within the past 12 years and any reservists who left the reserve forces within the past five years are eligible for call-up.
"This is a very drastic measure," one source said. "It is what we would have done if the Russians invaded western Europe and for reasons of national survival.
"It opens up the number of people eligible and means all previous bets are off. There will be no arguments for not going on business or personal reasons and if you refuse the police are likely to come knocking on your door."
In theory, refusal to take part could result in a reservist being taken into military custody with the possibility of the call-up being challenged in the civilian courts.
It is unlikely that any single case would be allowed to go that far because of the risk of it becoming a cause celebre among anti-war campaigners.
The mobilization, which is expected to be matched in America this week, is seen as further pressure on Saddam.
The source said: "It was previously known simply as the coercion plan but is now known as ‘Force on Mind‘ with three components: credibility, timeliness and consequences.
"Saddam will know that no British effort can be credible without dependence on large numbers of troops. In order to do the job we have to make a mass call-up of reservists and this is it. It shows we could not be more serious."
Ministry of Defence plans to begin deploying a reduced strength armoured division and an aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf this month have been disrupted by Treasury complaints that it would cost too much.
But it is thought that ultimately Prime Minister Tony Blair would overrule the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown‘s objections and order the deployment to go ahead.
The government was wary of courting controversy with a Queen‘s Order and wanted to ask for volunteers. But defence chiefs said that would produce only a few hundred.
Logistics personnel from all three services will be among the first called up together with special forces, intelligence and signals reservists.
They will be followed by up to 10,000 other troops, some of them simply "backfilling" for troops deployed to the Gulf, others providing battlefield replacements for any troops killed or wounded in Iraq.
They will include specialists such as engineers and medics who have been stripped away from the Armed Forces by successive defence cuts, primarily the Options for Change introduced by the Major government in the early 1990s.
During the 1991 Gulf war only 1,500 reservists were called up but that was only achieved by gutting the army in Germany and the U.K. Cuts and commitments such as the firemen‘s strike mean a much larger call-up this time.
The ministry had planned to introduce the mobilization surreptitiously with an announcement made as call-up orders arrived on the door mats of the first reservists.
But when ministers were told that this would take two weeks they feared news might leak out early, causing even more controversy.
