Reservists ordered to mobilise
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 04/11/2002)

Enforced mobilisation of up to 10,000 reservists will be announced by
the Government this week in preparation for a war on 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
mobilisation.

The announcement could come this afternoon with Geoff Hoon, the Defence
Secretary, answering a question in the Commons from a primed Labour
backbencher.

The mobilisation is part of continued attempts by Britain and America 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 need only serve for 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
mobilised 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 mobilisation, 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."

MoD 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 Tony Blair would overrule 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 UK. Cuts and
commitments such as the firemen's strike mean a much larger call-up this
time.

The MoD had planned to introduce the mobilisation 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.


2 November 2002: Brown warns defence chiefs war on Iraq is 'too
expensive'

2 November 2002: Treasury balks at £15bn bill for attack on Iraq

20 October 2002: MoD to begin call-up of 1,000 reserves for Iraq within
10 days

1 October 2002: MoD orders £13bn carriers and jets

7 September 2002: War drum strategy may avoid conflict

18 July 2002: Army facing changes for war on terror

7 July 2002: UK to send 30,000 to help oust Saddam

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