§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department's estimate is of the number of Iraqi civilians killed as a result of coalition aircraft responding 10 threats in(a) the northern and (b) the southern no-fly zone in Iraq between (i) 1 April 1991 and 16 December 1998 and (ii) since 20 December 1998 through (A) collateral damage, (B) attack on an unintended target and (C) malfunction of ordnance; what percentage of attacks in the no-fly zones resulted in civilian casualties over each of these periods, and if he will make a statement. [145423]
§ Mr. HoonI refer the right hon. and learned Member to the answer I gave on 6 June 2000,Official Report, columns 168–69W.
§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions coalition aircraft patrolling the(a) northern and (b) southern no-fly zone in Iraq have hit targets different from the intended target since 20 December 1998; on what dates each attack took place; what percentage these represented of overall attacks during this period; and if he will make a statement.[145425]
§ Mr. HoonThe coalition goes to exceptional lengths to avoid hitting anything other than the intended target, including through the use of very strict target clearance procedures and precision guided munitions. We also routinely conduct painstaking battle damage assessment after every bomb is dropped. For these reasons we are confident that, in the vast majority of cases, ordnance released by coalition aircraft lands on or very close to its intended target.
I am withholding detailed information on the activity undertaken by coalition aircraft in accordance with Part II of Section 1c of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
For the period 20 December 1998 to 12 May 2000, I refer the right hon. and learned Member to my answer to his question on 6 June 2000, Official Report, columns 168–69W. There have been no further occasions of ordnance from UK aircraft appearing to hit unintended targets. The weapons released on these two previous occasions still represents some 1 per cent. of ordnance released by UK over this period.
535W
§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions(a) coalition and (b) UK aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone in Iraq have released ordnance in response to violations since 1 November 2000 indicating in percentage terms for this period the (i) nature of the threat (ii) category of the target attacked and (iii) tonnage of ordnance released on each category of target (A) in total and (B) as proportion of the overall tonnage released in this period; and if he will make a statement. [145461]
§ Mr. HoonBetween 1 November 2000 and 12 January 2001 coalition aircrew conducting legitimate humanitarian patrols in the southern no-fly zone were directly threatened by the Iraqi air defence forces on 24 occasions and responded in self-defence on nine occasions against Iraqi military facilities posing a direct threat to coalition forces. UK aircraft released ordnance on four occasions. Details of the threats to coalition aircraft, broken down by percentage, are:
(i) Nature of threat by percentage
Aircraft Violations of Southern no-fly zone: 3 per cent.Anti-Aircraft Artillery/Surface to Air Missile Firings: 97 per cent.(ii) Category of Target Attacked by percentageIntegrated Air Defence System: 100 per cent.(iii) UK Weapons Released against Integrated Ground Based Air Defence System
- (a) By tonnage: 4 tonnes
- (b) By percentage: 100 per cent.
§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions since 20 December 1998 his Department has been able to verify the claims of civilian casualties due to coalition aircraft activity over the no-fly zones made by the Government of Iraq; what percentage of Iraqi claims of civilian dead his Department considers to be accurate in relation to(a) number of dead and (b) occasions when coalition activity has resulted in casualties; and if he will make a statement. [145468]
§ Mr. HoonThe Ministry of Defence has no objective means of verifying Iraqi claims of civilian casualties. I am not therefore in a position to provide the precise information requested by the right hon. and learned Member.
Coalition aircraft conducting legitimate, entirely humanitarian patrols of the Iraqi no-fly zones are being repeatedly attacked by Iraqi forces. Faced with these acts of aggression coalition aircraft, acting entirely in self-defence, only ever target Iraqi military facilities that pose an immediate and serious threat to their safety. It is deeply regrettable that they are forced to take this action, but they are only acting in self-defence. The risk of civilian casualties is always a major consideration during the very careful target selection process and only precision-guided weapons are used where there is any risk of civilian casualties.
As the right hon. and learned Member implies, Saddam Hussein routinely claims that civilian casualties have been caused as a result of coalition activity over the no-fly zones. It is in his interests to do so. We learnt long ago not to give too much credence to these allegations. We conduct careful battle damage assessment (BDA) after every incident; this analysis demonstrates in the majority of cases that the coalition weapons have, acting in self-defence, in fact hit their intended military target. The 536W Iraqis regularly claim that there have been civilian casualties on days when the coalition has not even patrolled, let alone dropped any ordnance, and we know that they routinely claim that civilians have been killed when the casualties were actually military personnel. We know also that Saddam has claimed the coalition was responsible for casualties that were in fact caused by Iraqi air defence weapons.