1 Tuesday, 15 April 2008

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.

6 JUDGE MOLOTO: Good morning to everybody in and around the

7 courtroom.

8 Madam Registrar, could you please call the case.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honour, good morning everyone

10 in the courtroom. This is case number IT-04-83-T, The Prosecutor versus

11 Rasim Delic.

12 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. Can we have the appearances

13 starting with the Prosecution, please.

14 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning, Your

15 Honours, to my learned colleagues from the Defence, General Delic, and to

16 everyone in and around the courtroom. For the Prosecution, Daryl Mundis

17 and Kyle Wood, assisted by our case manager, Alma Imamovic.

18 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. Now for the Defence.

19 MS. VIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour, good

20 morning to my colleagues from the Office of the Prosecutor, to everyone

21 in and around the courtroom. Vasvija Vidovic and Nicholas Robson for the

22 Defence of General Delic, with our legal assistant Lejla Gluhic.

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

24 Good morning, sir. Could you please stand up.

25 Could you please make the declaration.

1 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

2 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. You may be seated.

4 WITNESS: PAUL CORNISH

5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Robson, good morning.

6 MR. ROBSON: Good morning, Your Honours.

7 Examination by Mr. Robson:

8 Q. Good morning, Dr. Cornish.

9 A. Good morning.

10 Q. My name is Nicholas Robson and together with my colleagues we

11 represent General Rasim Delic.

12 The Defence has called you as an expert witness today to

13 discussion a report that you have prepared. That report is entitled

14 "General Competence: Leadership, Command, and Control in Contemporary

15 Warfare."

16 Before we turn to the report, I would just like to raise a couple

17 of preliminary issues, if I may. The first thing I would like to say is

18 that both you and I speak the same language; and in answering my

19 questions today, I would ask you to speak slowly and also to pause, if

20 you could, after I have asked the question. That will enable the

21 interpreters to correctly interpret the questions and answers that we

22 both give.

23 The second thing that I wish to raise is: Can I check, do you

24 have a copy of your report and your CV in front of you?

25 A. Yes, I do. I have both of them here.

1 Q. And those are the only two documents that you have there?

2 A. Yes.

3 MR. ROBSON: Your Honours, with the Court's permission, is it all

4 right if the witness has those documents before him.

5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes. I don't think there is any problem.

6 MR. MUNDIS: No problem, whatsoever.

7 MR. ROBSON:

8 Q. So dealing with some introductory questions: Where do you work

9 at the moment?

10 A. I work at Chatham House which is otherwise known as the Royal

11 Institute of International Affairs in London.

12 Q. And what do you do there?

13 A. I hold the -- the Carrington. It's a named chair, a professorial

14 appointment. The full title is the Carrington Professor of International

15 Security. That is my title, and my appointment is to he the

16 international security programme at Chatham House.

17 Q. Could you explain for us briefly what Chatham House is and what

18 it does?

19 A. Perhaps not briefly but I'll try.

20 Chatham House is, in many respects, the first of the world's

21 foreign affairs think tanks. It was established in the mid-1920s in the

22 aftermath of the First World War, and the idea was to provide a place

23 where diplomatic and official delegations could talk and, indeed,

24 negotiate in what we today might call offline; that is to say, in the

25 margins or off the record without being held to an official formal

1 declared governmental position.

2 As a result, we have the so-called Chatham House Rule, which is

3 simply another way of saying off the record, and that is essentially the

4 big idea behind Chatham House. We conduct a very great deal of research,

5 policy focussed research, in all aspects of international affairs,

6 covering all major regions of the world as well as functional discipline,

7 such as international economics, international law, environment and

8 energy, and, finally, in my case, international security.

9 Q. You told us that you lead the international security programme.

10 What sort of issues do you deal with during the course of your role?

11 A. We are very involved at the moment in working on issues to do

12 with proliferation and arms control. I'm developing project proposals at

13 the moment on what I call low level proliferation of chemical and nuclear

14 technology and on conventional weapons; that is to say, small arms and

15 the like.

16 As well as that, we work extensively on terrorism-related issues,

17 both UK domestically and internationally. We work, as indeed all

18 security think tanks that are working at the moment, on the current

19 operations specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also work very

20 closely on the relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty

21 Organisation and the European Union where the use of armed force is

22 concerned.

23 Q. I would like now is turn to your report.

24 MR. ROBSON: And, Your Honour, this is Defence document D 1034.

25 So perhaps we could bring that up on the screen, please.

1 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Robson, I was looking when I was going

2 through the report and the CV of the witness - good morning, sir -

3 whether the witness has a predominantly political background or legal

4 background. It's not quite clear from thinks CV. Could you explore

5 this.

6 MR. ROBSON: Yes, Your Honour. I was going touch upon this a

7 little later, but it is appropriate to do so now.

8 Q. Dr. Cornish, are you able to answer the Judge's question. Do you

9 have a predominantly political background or a legal background?

10 A. Very much predominantly political and non-legal. My legal

11 training is almost non-existent; although, I did undergo standard

12 military legal training at low level, to enable me to undertake duties as

13 a court martial prosecution officer, but that was in the 1980s.

14 Q. Turning, then, to the report --

15 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just a second. How low was the low level.

16 THE WITNESS: Very low.

17 JUDGE MOLOTO: How low is very low.

18 THE WITNESS: It was at the level of -- I have had never had any

19 legal training, so I would imagine it would be undergraduate level, but a

20 very short course simply to enable an officer normally of captain rank to

21 present a prosecution case with very close advice from, as it was then,

22 the British Army legal service.

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

24 MR. ROBSON: What I'd like to do is turn to page 3, first of all,

25 in the report. So if we could move to that page, please, and it is

1 paragraph 4 that I'm interested in.

2 Q. We can see the document on the screens in front of us, but please

3 feel free to refer to the hard copy before you, Dr. Cornish.

4 And in the report, the framework of your report deals with three

5 layers of activity: Leadership, command, and control. You state that

6 each of which is indispensable to military success.

7 What is the basis for you stating that each of those three

8 activities is indispensible to military success?

9 A. Simple my understanding and knowledge and experience of these

10 matters, both as a formally a military practitioner having been through

11 training and as a scholar and academic and teacher in aspects of interest

12 here, and, indeed, as someone who has been writing about these sorts of

13 matters for some 25 years. I mean to say that this is how I would

14 present the idea of "generalship," if I were to be, for example,

15 lecturing in this matter to undergraduates or graduates at Cambridge or

16 where ever.

17 Q. And are these areas, these activities, leadership, command, and

18 control, are these issues upon which you have lectured --

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. -- and dealt with during the course of your career?

21 A. Yes, very much so.

22 Q. And perhaps you could briefly tell us where you have lectured

23 about them and in what other capacities you have dealt with these issues?

24 A. I have lectured on behalf of King's College London, who hold the

25 -- they hold a teaching contract to the UK Ministry of Defence and they

1 provide the academic presence at the Joint Staff College in the UK. I

2 lectured there, and I have also lectured at the University of Cambridge

3 on international security where one of the courses I ran was on laws of

4 armed conflict, international humanitarian law, and the just war

5 tradition, and so on. I have also lectured in, really, I can't recall

6 them all, but in various places, military academies, here in The Hague in

7 the Clingendael Institute, and various places around the world on these

8 matters. I have also, finally, during my time in the foreign and

9 commonwealth office, I also conducted some close policy research and

10 analysis on these sorts of issues, both command and control and use of

11 armed forces, in various areas to deal with current policy issues in the

12 early 1990s.

13 Q. You mentioned that King's College had a academic presentation at

14 the Joint Staff College in the UK. What is the Joint Staff College?

15 A. This is, essentially, the training and education organisation

16 that deals with the transition from junior officership, if I can call it

17 that, which would be, therefore, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, up to

18 the next level and far, far beyond. The idea is that this act is, in a

19 sense, a filtering device to ensure that only those who go forward to

20 higher levels of command in the UK military systems, and, indeed, in

21 foreign military systems because there is a very large foreign presence

22 at the staff college, that that should be a requirement.

23 Q. Is that an organisation that provides training for the British

24 Army?

25 A. It is training and education, and the education side of it in all

1 aspects of international affairs and aspects of policy, and indeed

2 strategic studies, that is provided under contract by King's College of

3 the University of London. They provide, if you like, an academic

4 department which is part of the staff college, mainly focussed on

5 training British military officers.

6 I should have explained that the word "joint" refers to the fact

7 that, in the mid-1990s in the UK, and as this happened in various other

8 countries with, if you like, smaller armed forces, all three staff

9 colleges were merged into one. That in military jargon is embodied in

10 the use of the term "joint."

11 JUDGE MOLOTO: And what are the three staff colleges?

12 THE WITNESS: One was the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich,

13 the second was the Royal Air Force College at Bracknell, and the third

14 was the Army Staff College at Camberley.

15 MR. ROBSON:

16 Q. Turning to two of those activities, command and control, how

17 would you distinguish between military command and control?

18 A. I try to explain this in the body of the paper in these terms:

19 Command really is about direction and decision; whereas, control is about

20 the effecting those directions and decisions, and it is, therefore, about

21 the management of the, if you like, whole business, and it's about

22 ensuring that the commander's decision is carried into -- into action.

23 MR. ROBSON: Now, I think we can move on from here to page 5,

24 paragraph 8 of the report, which falls within the section that deals with

25 military leadership.

1 Q. And, in paragraph 8, you refer to the British General Sir John

2 Hackett and how he speaks of a military leader being understood as being

3 one part of a greater corporate exercise.

4 Can you explain further to us about the military leader being

5 part of a common undertaking concern or enterprise?

6 A. Yes. I mean, simply, that certainly in my experience and my

7 scholarship and my analysis leads me to this conclusion that a modern

8 military undertaking is a very complex undertaking; and, of course, as

9 all military undertakings have ever been, it can be a very dangerous and

10 high risk activity. And in that context, perhaps more in the modern

11 world than at any time in military history, there is a requirement for

12 the activity to be that very much of a team undertaking.

13 So I think Hackett, John Hackett, gets to the point very well,

14 which is why I quoted rather extensively from him here, for which I

15 apologise. But I think he gets to the point that there must be a close

16 relationship of a team sort between the leader or commander and those he

17 leads or commands. It isn't simply a matter of directing, saying, Go do

18 this. It has to be much more organic and dynamic than that that is what

19 I am trying to get at, and I think John Hackett expresses it far better

20 than I do.

21 Q. Thank you for that. We can move on from military leadership and

22 turn to the next section in your report, which find at page 7, and this

23 deals with military commander.

24 At the top of the page in the preamble, you say that: "The

25 potential commander must be identified as such and must then receive

1 professional training to enable him to carry out his tasks."

2 And then if we go down to paragraph 12, at the very -- in the

3 very last sentence, you say that: "Effective military command should not

4 be expected to occur as if by accident with no proper training or

5 preparation."

6 And my question is: How important is training for a military

7 commander?

8 A. I think it is enormously, enormously important, and I say that

9 for two reasons. I think no soldier or sailor or airman or whatever

10 could undertake these tasks without undergoing extensive training or as

11 extensive as possible, simply because the idea is that those people are

12 going to be asked to endure a great deal of danger and risk. And in

13 those circumstances, they are going to be asked to do what most human

14 beings would not do.

15 If someone is shooting at you or me, our natural human instinct

16 to get down and undercover or run away. That is what we are wired to do

17 as human beings. Somehow you have to get a soldier trained to the point

18 that he will resist that inclination and will be able to carry out a

19 variety of other tasks and, indeed, expose himself to danger and fire

20 back. So that is the first level. You can't get anywhere in any

21 military organisation without being trained as intensively as you can to

22 be able to undergo those sorts of circumstances.

23 As far as leadership training is concerned, you, the leader or

24 commander, or potential leader and commander, at one level have to be

25 able to convince those you're about to lead into danger that you are

1 competent and that you are able to make good judgments. As I said

2 somewhere in the paper, in fact, that you're able to do the job and

3 you're not some kind of a psychopath or something. So you have to be

4 able to do that to convince your troops.

5 Then there is it another level which is to do with modern

6 conflict, modern militaries, modern armed warfare, which is that it is

7 increasingly a high-tech or high technology and complicated exercise;

8 and, of course, here I'm speaking, by and large, about I guess Western

9 European and the US military experience. But you can see that around the

10 world militaries are, as far as they can and as far as they're budgets

11 can afford, they are embracing the ideas of high technology warfare.

12 In those circumstances, the commander has to be able to, in a

13 sense, to grasp so many different activities and technologies and

14 capabilities that a general if 100 or 150 years ago would never obviously

15 have even contemplated. So it is now a vast management exercise, as well

16 as a matter of, if you like, courage, character, leadership, confidence,

17 and all those tradition military things. It is now more complicated, I

18 would contend, than it ever has been in history.

19 Q. And within the hierarchy of an army, at what levels should a

20 commander receive training? Is it at all levels or is it more important

21 at certain levels?

22 A. I would argue that it is important from the very first step,

23 really. If you are -- if you join an army or any armed force at a very

24 low level as a private soldier, then once you have acquired your basic

25 skills, that organisation is then looking to see whether you are able to

1 be stepped up to the next level, because, in a sense, what they want to

2 do is, not only confirm that you can do the basic military job, but that

3 you can then lead others in doing the basic military job. So at any

4 level in any organisation, whether it be army, navy, or air force, or

5 anything else you can think of, and I would say in any country, there is

6 the idea that actually party of being - let me use the term, "a soldier,"

7 but I mean it to include everything - part of being a soldier is not

8 simply being able to act as a soldier and do the basic military things,

9 but also to gradually acquire the skills of command.

10 Now, I think this becomes very important because what it then

11 means is that ideally, as a person rises to the top of the - I call it

12 here the command chain - or if you like the system or the hierarchy, it

13 should mean that that person will have acquired, by the time he gets to,

14 let's say, a brigadier, he will have acquired, or she, an enormous level

15 of experience at every single level of command. So that is, essentially,

16 the way it should go.

17 Q. And what is the likely result if a commander lacks training, if

18 you're able to say?

19 A. Well, there have been, I guess, examples in history - I don't

20 have them at hand - where a commander proves to be unable to cope with a

21 level of command into which he is thrust. I think this is sometimes

22 known as the "Peter Principle," whereby your level of incompetence is

23 only revealed once you're promoted into it. So this, as it were,

24 incompetent officer might find himself running something which is simply

25 beyond his training or his understanding.

1 I'm having some difficulty with this because in my limited

2 experience, this is simply not something that should happen. It should

3 be the case that this person will have gone through all the levels of

4 training and so forth, and, unless he was asleep, would have understood

5 the basic ideas and should, therefore, have some level of competence.

6 The importance, I guess, is that promotions, of course, always can

7 happen, as it termed, in the field, in the midst of combat. And there

8 you can often find a very junior officer, let's say a lieutenant-colonel

9 in his late 20s and the equivalence in other armed services, being

10 promoted very, very highly to command, let's say, a brigade or even a

11 division. Clearly, in the midst of a war, he won't have been able to

12 attend staff college and so on. But in those circumstances, it will have

13 been his performance in combat that will have earned him the reputation

14 and, therefore, as it were, qualified him for promotion.

15 Q. Okay. Still, on the same topic, you've just explained to us

16 about members of an army rising up through the system or the hierarchy.

17 How does a commander normally move up through the military hierarchy; in

18 other words, how is he normally assigned to a new position?

19 A. Well, a position would become -- I can only speak here really of

20 my understanding of just one system, which, of course, is the British

21 system, whereby, in a sense, you have a body of people moving up, you

22 know, a ever narrowing hierarchy; and people fall off at the top, as they

23 retire, or worse, in time of war, and, therefore, they create a vacancy,

24 which is then to be filled by the juniors. And at each level, there is a

25 discussion as to which of those juniors should fill those posts, which is

1 best qualified, and then extensive review of reports and all that kind of

2 thing to make the judgment about how should be promoted.

3 I suppose what I am trying to say is that in normal peacetime

4 circumstances, it is not something that happens arbitrarily. It should

5 happen as a result of a very long process, which, in a sense, has been

6 going on for years and years. From a very junior level, military

7 officers are being gauged, being assessed for their likely level, top

8 level of command: Could this person become a lieutenant-colonel,

9 commanding a battalion or could he go even further?

10 Q. And if we can --

11 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] I have a question.

12 You said that in peacetime there is a process which is a complex

13 one; but in wartime, there are occasions when decisions have to be made

14 urgently, decisions that would not take into account all the data. To a

15 point, would there be situations where not everything would not be taken

16 into account to nominate, appoint a commander, in your country, of

17 course, because you were talking about your country.

18 THE WITNESS: In that circumstance, I would say that the

19 promotion might happen as follows; in that a more senior officer

20 requiring a promotion below him, a vacancy occurring below him, would

21 have within his scope of commander the ability to promote within his

22 command someone up to the new level.

23 So if you are a general and you need a new brigadier below you,

24 then you would look him, below that level, to find someone within your

25 command structure who you think, on the basis of that person's

1 performance in combat, could do the job.

2 You're absolutely right, Madam. Of course, there would be no

3 opportunity or little opportunity to read confidential reports going back

4 for 25 years and all that sort of stuff. He would have to make an

5 instant judgment.

6 JUDGE LATTANZI: Thank you, sir.

7 MR. ROBSON:

8 Q. And just following on from that, in such a situation, could you

9 tell us a little bit about the process by which an officer would be

10 assigned to a new commander position. In your experience, how would you

11 expect it to occur?

12 A. Forgive me for asking, do you mean in times of peace or in times

13 of conflict?

14 Q. Well, I suppose, first of all, in times of peace, if we could

15 consider that?

16 A. Then it would be known, for example, that such-and-such an

17 appointment would be coming up in two and a half years or three years

18 time, and that the candidates for that position would know who they are,

19 because of course they're all ambitious men and women. There would be a

20 number of people who would want that post, and they would either have put

21 themselves forward for it or they would have been told that they are

22 being nominated for it. So there would then be a selection process, and

23 I guess, I don't know, a year or so in advance, or whatever, somebody

24 would be told that it was be their job.

25 Q. And then, turning to the next question: How about in a time of

1 war, what sort of process would be involved in a commander taking over

2 new role?

3 A. The idea here would be to make it as detailed and as extensive as

4 you possibly can, and I guess that in times of conflict, that's a rate

5 limiting factor. So you have to imagine that a commander might be told,

6 "You are to take over because someone has been injured or worse than that

7 and you are to take over instantly." That person would, therefore, have

8 to do that, and the unit or organisation he was taking over would have to

9 be trained and organised to accept a new commander, and the whole thing

10 would have to work that way.

11 If there was some possibility of doing it "properly ," then it

12 might run as follows: The candidate or the new commander would be told

13 that it with as to be his post. He would then have what is known in

14 military circles as a period of "handover, takeover."

15 So the incumbent would meet the new candidate or his replacement.

16 They would go through as long as discussion as they could about the

17 nature of the command. The new commander would go and visit the ground

18 for which he was responsible. He would go and visit his sub-unit

19 commander. He would require briefings from his sub-unit commanders. And

20 he would, essentially, look into As much of his new command a he could

21 before or, more or less, at the time at which he was taking over.

22 So it gives him a chance to find out exactly what he is going

23 into, and it also gives him a chance to -- to impose his personal

24 presence and his personal authority over the new command structure.

25 Q. And what sort of period of time could that process take whereby

1 the new commander imposes his personal presence over the new command

2 structure?

3 A. I would say it could take anything, really, from minutes, in time

4 of immediate urgent conflict, to several days really, because

5 particularly if the handover, takeover is at very high level, then there

6 is, quite clearly, so much more to see and to understand. So the new

7 commander would have an awful lot more to -- to visit and to see and to

8 be briefed upon. So this, I guess, could take several days, I don't

9 know, perhaps even as long as a week. That is, as I describe it, the

10 proper way of doing things. It might be a bit of a luxury, but that

11 would be the way you would seek to achieve it.

12 Q. Turning to page 9, paragraph 17 of your report, you deal with

13 some concepts here, and the first one I wish to discuss with you is unity

14 of command.

15 Can you explain for us what this concept entails?

16 A. It is quite simple, really. It's the idea that there should be

17 only one person ultimately in charge, one person making the discussion,

18 one person responsible for making that decision, therefore, and deciding

19 how the operation at whatever level is to be run.

20 If there were to be two or more people making decisions, then I

21 guess it might work if those decisions were identical; but if they are

22 identical, then it is superfluous to have more than one. But the real

23 danger is that if have you more than one person in command, you might end

24 up with orders which conflict, and these are orders which are to go to

25 subordinate units or formations. And if a subordinate unit or formation

1 commander receives two orders which conflict, then he has, or she, might

2 have no idea which one to follow. So there's confusion. So the idea is

3 that you should avoid that at all costs in a military system through this

4 idea of unity of commander. Napoleon Bonaparte at once said that it was

5 be better to have one bad general than two good ones.

6 Q. Can you explain what is the basis of this concept, the unity of

7 command? Where does it come from?

8 A. It's difficult to track it down. I'm not sure I could find the

9 precise source of it. It is one of these ideas, one of these concepts

10 that is really, I think, considered so -- so basic and so obvious to the

11 military system, if you like, that's it has -- it no more has a clear

12 source than the idea of tactics, of actually fighting the enemy. I mean,

13 that is the idea. That is what you're supposed to do, but there is no

14 clear definitive source for that idea. I think it is as old as it

15 possibly can be.

16 Q. All right. Moving, then, to the other concept that you mention

17 in this paragraph, chain of command. Can you explain for us what you

18 mean by chain of command?

19 A. I think, for my understanding, unity of command is more

20 conceptual; chain of command is more descriptive. The term "chain of

21 command" describes the way things should be if you are operating

22 according to the principle of unity of command; that is to say, there

23 becomes -- as I think I said earlier, it is useful to think in terms of a

24 pyramidal hierarchical structure, with one man or woman at the top giving

25 orders to three or four below him or her and on you go. The idea is that

1 wherever you are in that system, you must know who is subordinate to you

2 and to whom you are subordinate, in order that there can be several

3 chains of command within the system but, ultimately, it conforms to one

4 major chain of command.

5 Q. Just touching on what you've told us, within paragraph 17, you

6 say that: "The arrangement of a military hierarchy would be explicit and

7 predesignated." Typically, how would this be done in an army?

8 A. Well, let me start from the top. A divisional commander, let's

9 say this is division number 1, would have under command three brigades,

10 A, B, and C; and each of those brigades would have under their command

11 three battalions, A1, A2, and A3, and so on. The point is that, at each

12 level, each commander, each unit, the whole thing, would know where they

13 fit into the system. So battalion A3 would know that it is part of

14 brigade A and part of division 1.

15 It is, again n my experience, but I don't think this is a

16 peculiar experience, it is a very well understood and actually very

17 important part of the military system to know where you fit into the

18 overall scheme of things, and it is often used actually to generate

19 sub-unit pride and loyalty and so on. So you would find, for example,

20 that the units of a brigade would consider themselves better than the

21 units of another brigade for no other reason than that they belonged to

22 that brigade. But that is all the idea of introducing a competitive and

23 improving spirit.

24 Q. I see. So you say that units would know where they would fit

25 into the overall scheme of things. In your report, you say that

1 assignments to chain of command can be altered as operations progress.

2 Could you tell us by what process would a unit normally be

3 assigned to a different part of the chain of command, if that was to be

4 done?

5 A. Yeah, as it can happen. But, of course, no military commander

6 would say that that this is the only it can ever happen, because at the

7 most senior level that person who is in charge has beneath him a vast set

8 of resources. His job is to use those resources in order to meet his

9 task, to prevent defeat or whatever you like. So what he must do is look

10 at those resources and use them as best he thinks he should.

11 Now, if the standard hierarchy, the standard arrangement that I

12 have been talking about, if that looks to be fit for the task, able to

13 achieve the goal, then the commander will simply make use of it as it

14 stands.

15 If, however, he thinks that there needs to be some re-arrangement

16 to take account of new circumstances or unforeseen challenges, then he

17 must make those changes, otherwise he would be an idiot. He would have

18 to redeploy forces; for example, if, at some point in his front line, one

19 commander far down the command chain was receiving more pressure than

20 another one further over here, then he would have to make a movement in

21 order to seal that gap, so to speak.

22 The way he would do that would be by making use of the command

23 chain but not by going around it. So he would say, if he is, let's say,

24 a very senior army corps commander, he would say to the commander of

25 division number 1, "I need you to provide some assistance to the

1 commander of division number 2" and the commander of division number 1

2 says, "Fine," And he then says to one of his brigade commanders, "I need

3 to you provide me with one battalion that I can then give to commander of

4 division number 2."

5 So all the way down the command chain, it is understood that this

6 is a direction through the command chain to provide a reinforcement to

7 somewhere else in the system. So there is, in a sense, no argument. It

8 is a well understood military practice, but it has to be done properly

9 and deliberately and carefully.

10 Q. In connection with this, in your report, you say that alterations

11 to the chain of command are only ever undertaken after careful

12 deliberation and with careful planning.

13 What steps, if any, would be taken when altering the chain of

14 command and moving when you need to another?

15 A. It would be iterative. It would be a matter of a senior

16 commander receiving either the order or the request to help, and he would

17 then look to his subordinate commanders and say, "This is what I have to

18 do, and I need a battalion," or whatever it might be. I'm using just one

19 limited example, of course. But the idea is that a battalion is needed,

20 he would then ask his various brigade commanders for one battalion. One

21 brigade might, I don't know, let's say, they might be exhausted having

22 just been fighting. Another one might say, "We have only just received

23 lots of very new troops and they're not very experienced." The third one

24 might say, "Well, we have actually just been resting, so we're in very

25 good shape. So you can have one of mine," and so he provides it.

1 It is all done by, as I said an iterative. It is a dialogue. In

2 a sense, there is no doubt that at some point a battalion will be

3 provided, but it is it as reasonably -- as reasonable a dialogue you can

4 except in the circumstances to ensure that the right battalion is moved.

5 After all, I'm sorry just to label this, that commander wants to ensure

6 that what is left under his command is also in good shape. So he wants

7 to make sure that he can protect his own force as well and that the whole

8 thing will be sustainable.

9 Q. Right. So to use your example, if a battalion under one brigade

10 was moved across so that it then came under a different brigade, who

11 would control the battalion after the change, after the alteration?

12 A. There would be absolutely no doubt whatsoever, and there could be

13 no doubt whatsoever, that there would be a change of command. This would

14 be critical, and the battalion commander would know that, that he would

15 be going out of one command structure into another. There should be

16 actually no gap between the two, and you see it written in terms of a

17 timing, you know: At 7.00 on the 15th of April, you cease to be under

18 command of brigade A, and you will command the commander of brigade B.

19 It is as clear as that. So one minute to the next, there would be a

20 transition of command.

21 If you don't have that, then, again, you have no unity of

22 command, because that battalion commander is then in a position of not

23 knowing where he's going to be receiving his orders from and to whom he

24 should give his information. So it is absolutely critical that one

25 command chain ends as another one begins.

1 Q. So at the precise moment in time, the battalion commander will no

2 longer receive instructions from and report to brigade commander A

3 [Realtime transcript read in error "commander B"]; but at that moment, he

4 will receive instructions from brigade commander B, and he will begin to

5 report to that new brigade commander. Is that right?

6 A. Yes. In my understanding, that would be absolutely fundamental.

7 Q. And for what sort of time-period could this alteration last for?

8 Would it be permanent or would it be for a particular period of time?

9 A. It could be anything, really. It could be -- it could well be

10 permanent. As I said, the senior commander has the right to reorganise

11 and redeploy his forces as he -- in a sense, as he sees fit. But for the

12 sake of the coherence and consistency of the organisation overall, you

13 would probably expect or hope that that detached unit would go for a few

14 hours or a few days and would then come back again to restore the

15 coherence and fitness of the organisation it left.

16 MR. ROBSON: Your Honours, I just want to correct one matter in

17 the transcript. At page 21, at line 16, it states, in connection with

18 the battalion commander, that "he will no longer receive instructions

19 from and report to brigade 'commander B'; but at that moment, he will

20 receive instructions from brigade 'commander B.'" It should, of course,

21 say --

22 JUDGE MOLOTO: Commander A.

23 MR. ROBSON: Yes, he will receive instructions from brigade

24 commander A.

25 JUDGE MOLOTO: While we're on this point, now that we have had a

1 little bit pause to correct the transcript.

2 Sir, you were saying there should be careful deliberation and

3 careful planing. Who deliberates before these changes in command

4 structure take place? I'm getting a little confused because I thought

5 you said there should be one commander and the commander gives

6 instructions. Now there is a question of deliberation. Who deliberates

7 with who?

8 THE WITNESS: As I said, there is no doubt that a decision has

9 been made. In the example that we're using, a battalion is to be moved

10 from one area to another. So it is going to happen. The deliberation

11 would take place between the senior commander and his more junior

12 commanders. One of them might say, "Well, I can't send any of my

13 battalions because they are all untrained or exhausted or whatever." So

14 in the end, it would come back to one of other battalion commanders who

15 would then provide the battalion that would then be sent.

16 JUDGE MOLOTO: So you are saying, in fact, that, as the commander

17 gives the command, say, a corps commander gives a command to the brigade,

18 to say, "I want you to give a battalion to brigade B," the commander of

19 the brigade has the right to talk back and say, "Sorry. I can't give you

20 that. My guys are tired. They have just been working."

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think there would be. You would

22 expect that they would all be -- as I said, it all has to happen, but

23 what they want to have transferred is a battalion that is able to do the

24 new job.

25 JUDGE MOLOTO: I understand.

1 THE WITNESS: There would be no point that transferring one of

2 his under strength or exhausted or whatever. So there would be an

3 exchange of information in order to identify the most suitable solution,

4 but there would have to be a solution.

5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

6 MR. ROBSON:

7 Q. With the example that you have given us, if a battalion was to be

8 moved across the chain of command, at which -- which level would take the

9 decision to move the battalion ordinarily?

10 A. It's very difficult to say. It would -- it would obviously have

11 to happen beyond the level of brigade because we're talking about taking

12 a battalion outside of the existing command chain, and that battalion

13 answers to a brigade headquarters. So it could happen at the level

14 beyond the brigade which is the division, or it could happen beyond the

15 level beyond the division which is the corps or whatever you use.

16 So it would -- it could happen at the level at which the problem,

17 in a sense, is identified and at which a senior officer decides that

18 there is to be a certain action to rectify the problem. That decision

19 then goes back down the chain of command until a solution found which is

20 then provided.

21 Q. Right. Could you tell us what would be the likely result if,

22 after a change in the chain of command, the unit did not report to the

23 new commander but continued to report to the former commander?

24 A. This would -- I think I would put it as strongly as saying that

25 this would be military anathema, because this would breach the basic

1 fundamental idea of unity of command, and it would undermine the system

2 of the command chain. So that would be the first fairly major problem.

3 The second problem would be -- could be more practical, in

4 that -- and it is to do with what the military call operational security.

5 What that means is that everybody in this complicated system should know

6 what everybody else is doing. And if, to go back to our example, you are

7 a battalion commander and you have no idea of what the neighbouring

8 battalion commander is doing, or indeed who this person is or who he is

9 taking orders from, then this is an very grave danger that you might

10 misinterpret his actions, you might see some of troops where you think

11 they shouldn't be, you might think they are enemy forces, you might fire

12 on them, and so on.

13 So there has to be a very, very close understanding of what the

14 disposition of forces is and what the tasks are that they are

15 undertaking.

16 Q. Now, moving to a slightly different issue within chain of command

17 and unity of command.

18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Robson, this is a crucial point. Could you

19 explore with the witness how is information ensured between battalions

20 who fight next door, so to say.

21 MR. ROBSON: Your Honour, this is an issue I'm going to explore

22 because it is dealt with in the report. So, perhaps, if you allow me, I

23 will come to that. And if you have any further questions, you can

24 obviously let me know.

25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Great.

1 MR. ROBSON:

2 Q. So dealing with unity of command, and putting the issue slightly

3 differently, what if there's a situation where, within a military unit,

4 there are a number of individuals who all purport to the commander of the

5 unit, and it is not clear to the superior commander at the next level up

6 who has ultimate authority over that unit, what are the likely problems,

7 if any, that could arise?

8 A. I would say in the very unlikely circumstance that there would

9 be -- again, I find this difficult to conceive of. It sort of

10 contradicts all of my understanding and experience. But let's suppose

11 that there were such a circumstance of three or four people saying that

12 they were in charge, then that organisation, it seems to me, would be

13 close to being entirely dysfunctional.

14 Going back to one of my first remarks, that, in the end, a

15 military system, particularly a military system because of the dangers

16 and urgency and so on, has to have a decision coming by some means to

17 enable the organisation to function. You would have three or four

18 different. Again, if they were at all the same decisions, then fine, but

19 superfluous. But if they were different decisions, then that

20 organisation, I would say, could not possibly function effectively.

21 This isn't simply three or four people sitting around a table

22 discussing the way the world looks. They are actually running something.

23 It might not be military, it could be a business, it could be anything.

24 If those instructions or ideas conflict with each other, then I, forgive

25 me, but I don't see how that organisation could be said to be effective

1 or could actually run very well at all.

2 As far as that organisation's superior is concerned, then, again,

3 I think you would repeat the confusion in a way, because, let's say going

4 back to our example, the brigade commander would not know to whom he or

5 she should be giving orders and receiving information. He would also

6 look at an organisation that was, in military terms, dysfunctional; and

7 he would say to himself or herself, "How can I trust this organisation,

8 how can I give it a task, if it is organised in the way it appears to

9 be?"

10 Q. So it is important --

11 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry. Can I just interrupt. What was the

12 question? If you look at page 25, line 10, is it individuals who all

13 purport to be the commander or who all the report to the commander?

14 There's been some correction.

15 MR. ROBSON: Purport.

16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Purport to be the commander.

17 MR. ROBSON: Yes.

18 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

19 MR. ROBSON:

20 Q. So, Dr. Cornish, does it follow, then, that it is important for a

21 superior commander to know who was in command of a subordinate unit?

22 A. Yes. I think it is very important, because I think everything

23 I've read and understood about these matters suggests to me that -- that

24 a personal command relationship builds up between a senior commander and

25 his subordinate commanders, and between them and their subordinates,

1 because they have to know that that person is able to take on the

2 pressures of command and all of the things that I have been talking.

3 They have to, more to the point, they have to be in a position whereby

4 they can trust that commander to carry out the orders or instructions

5 that have been given. So there must be a big personal dimension to this.

6 Q. Still on the issue of military commander, I'm going to move on to

7 a slightly different topic, and this is on page 10 at paragraph 21, and

8 this is a paragraph which deals with soldiers joining a military

9 organisation.

10 And in the middle of the paragraph, you say: "The soldiers

11 initial act of consent to be led is characteristically and largely

12 non-reversible.

13 Can you explain why this is the case?

14 A. This refers, obviously, to voluntarily armed forces primarily,

15 but I would say not exclusively. In a sense, you could argue that where

16 armed forces are conscripted, where there is compulsory military service,

17 in a sense - I wouldn't want to push this point to far - there is an

18 assumed consent which is being employed.

19 But the main point I'm making here is that this person has to

20 make a decision to join an armed force; and once he or she makes that

21 decision, it is inconceivable that what they are joining is something

22 that cannot allow that decision to be changed next month or when things

23 change or because "I wanted to go on a longer holiday that than you're

24 going to give me" or whatever. It is a very serious undertaking which

25 has to be made.

1 The British strategist Lidell Hart referred to the idea of an

2 unlimited liability. I mean, that is taking it too far, but there is

3 something of the idea in that. You're joining something and you're

4 making a serious commitment for a number of years which you cannot break.

5 Of course, we all undertake contracts of various sorts which we might

6 change our minds about and, actually, in effect, we might decide to

7 break. And in the military, you can break your contract, but you can

8 only do so through a very deliberate process. You apply for resignation

9 and so on and so forth. I would say it would be very rare for that to

10 happen during time of conflict, because the thing would simply fall

11 apart.

12 So, at risk of repeating myself, when this person signs up, he or

13 she signs up to an organisation which then expects them to remain there

14 in position for the agreed time, whether it be two years or three or

15 whatever.

16 Q. And what sort of problems could arise if a soldier was able to

17 unilaterally terminate his relationship with the army and leave at any

18 stage, if you are able to say?

19 A. I would guess that the problem would be as follows: I have been

20 talking about putting men and women, young men and women, in positions of

21 extreme danger and expecting them to, in a sense, to do something which

22 is counterintuitive, which is to stay in a position of danger rather than

23 get under cover or run from that position of danger. And if you have a

24 military system which accepts that if it becomes dangerous you'll simply

25 leave, then have you essentially systematic desertion.

1 I just have a picture of an organisation that would fall apart

2 very quickly. It simply could not be tolerated. Everything possible

3 would be done to ensure it did not happen, and this is why in training

4 you find a very pronounced emphasis on very low level loyalty between

5 just one or two individual; the buddy system, it is called systems. You

6 also emphasise loyalty to your unit and loyalty to your battalion and

7 everything else and to your uniform, to your flag, you name it. It is

8 all to do with your loyalty, all designed to try and keep you in position

9 at a time when all your instincts are telling you that actually you

10 should go, because, as I said, if you do decide together, and if the

11 system somehow tolerates it, then it all looks to me as if it would fall

12 apart.

13 Q. So you said the system would fall apart if persons were able to

14 leave.

15 To ask you a slightly different question, could any problems

16 arise from individuals being spontaneously being able to join a military

17 unit at will, without having to sign any agreement or undergo any

18 official recruitment process?

19 A. Joining at well; just arriving?

20 Q. Yes, in a combat situation.

21 A. I think it would generate a different set of problems, to be

22 honest. If, let's say, you were a battalion commander or equivalent,

23 with, I don't know, 5 or 600 men and women under command, and you wake up

24 one morning and another hundred men have turned up and they say they want

25 to fight for you, well, you have no idea and - I go back to Napoleon

1 Bonaparte, you know, one bad general is better than two good ones - the

2 battalion commander would not know where those people come from, how well

3 were they trained, did they understand what was to be achieved, how long

4 were they going to be stay, could they be trusted to remain.

5 Actually, more to the point, if you don't know where they have

6 come from and who they are, then there might be a security dimension to

7 this: Am I going to trust them with all this information about my

8 disposition on the battlefield and those of my accompanying units and so

9 on. You simply wouldn't know who these people were, and I think there

10 would be -- there would be some reluctance simply to accept these --

11 these -- well, not perhaps to accept them, but certainly to depend upon

12 them in any really sense.

13 Q. Is it important that an army be able to depend upon its members?

14 A. Yes. I think so, and I won't labour the point about people being

15 in stress and immense danger again. But I think what the system, the

16 army, the hierarchy, has to do is to be able to depend on all

17 subordinates in the structure, such that when an instruction is issued at

18 the top of the system, with a view to it going all the way down to the

19 bottom, that all those organisations in the system will be able and fit

20 and inclined to do what is asked of them. If you can't have that

21 dependability and trust, then the order is meaningless.

22 Q. Okay. Now a slightly different issue relating to the situation

23 when a soldier joins an army.

24 Is it normal for an army to keep records about such people

25 joining a unit?

1 A. I'm sorry. Do you mean for an army to keep records of its -- its

2 soldiers?

3 Q. Correct.

4 A. Yes, very much so. There is a very advanced level of

5 bureaucracy, certainly in the militaries that I have encountered, in a

6 sense because you're dealing with -- there is a very complicated human

7 resources operation going on. So there has to be a system of keeping

8 records, of training, and health and promotion and discipline, and all

9 that sort of thing. I guess, nowadays, it wouldn't be kept so much on

10 paper and in personal files and it would be kept on computers, but there

11 would be an effort to have a very close record of each person right the

12 way down the system, so that you would know who they were, where they

13 came from, and so on.

14 Q. And could any problems arise for a superior commander if he did

15 not have accurate information about the members of a subordinate unit

16 beneath him?

17 A. Yes, there might be some, in a variety of ways. To return to our

18 brigade commander, if he had a sense that one of his battalion commanders

19 didn't know who was under his command, then there would be some question

20 as to the effectiveness of that battalion commander, because the system,

21 the battalion and the brigade and the division and so on, could not then

22 have a good detailed sense of what that unit, that battalion is able to

23 do, of what it is capable. It could be good or better or actually much

24 worse than we think it.

25 Q. Sure. Now, I want to move on to page 11 and it is the last

1 sentence of paragraph 21, and this is connected to what you mentioned

2 earlier in your testimony.

3 And in this sentence, it says that: "The final point to note is

4 that in modern armies the consent being granted by an individual is also

5 to be subordinate do a political military system driven by an idea rather

6 than to be subordinate to a specific leader."

7 Can you explain for us a little further about this remark?

8 A. I think -- yes, thank you. I think you could take a sort of a

9 Hollywood view of military leadership, whereby the charismatic figure

10 arrives on the battlefield and enthuses the troops, and off they go and

11 they win a war. That has certainly happened in military history in

12 medieval and ancient times. There is no doubt about that. It is still

13 embodied, as I have been saying, in the idea of leadership and influence.

14 It is still an important commodity.

15 But, nowadays, this is a much more complicated system. And as I

16 say here, generals will come ago go, they will be killed and injured, and

17 so this complicated system has to be able to keep itself motivated and

18 keep itself going. The way it has does that in, I would argue in Western

19 liberal democracies, is ideally by being motivated by an idea rather than

20 being motivated by the leader, whoever it might be.

21 MR. ROBSON: Your Honours, I think it is the time for the break.

22 This might be an appropriate moment to stop.

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much. We'll take a break until

24 quarter to 11.00.

25 Court adjourned.

1 --- Recess taken at 10.14 a.m.

2 --- On resuming at 10.45 a.m.

3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Robson.

4 MR. ROBSON: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. Now, Dr. Cornish, before the break, we were talking about army

6 units following a system rather than a particular leader. And in

7 connection with that, I'd like to ask you this: Are there any traits by

8 which an army unit would typically show that it is part of a system?

9 A. Thank you, yes.

10 If I may, Your Honour, before I answer that, could I make the

11 point that, before the break, the transcript shows that I used the

12 certainly "secondary mass grave," and I don't believe I did use that

13 term. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I don't think I used

14 that expression.

15 Units would --

16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry. At what page and what line are you

17 referring?

18 THE WITNESS: On the screen now, it is at time 10.13.02.

19 MR. ROBSON: Yes. It is page 33, line 3 -- I apologise. It's

20 not.

21 JUDGE HARHOFF: It's the correction.

22 MR. ROBSON: It's the correction.

23 THE WITNESS: Previous page, line 8.

24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Okay. Previous page line 8, 32.

25 MR. ROBSON: Page 32, line 8, Your Honour.

1 JUDGE MOLOTO: 32.

2 JUDGE HARHOFF: What did you use?

3 Dr. Cornish, do you remember what term you did use.

4 THE WITNESS: I'm embarrassed to say that I can't exactly

5 remember what term I did use, but I really don't think I used the term

6 "secondary mass grave."

7 JUDGE HARHOFF: With the assistance of the audio recording, it

8 will be fixed.

9 MR. ROBSON: Thank you, Your Honour.

10 Q. Dr. Cornish, do you still recall the question, or would you like

11 me to repeat it.

12 A. I do. If I remember, the question was what traits or symbols or

13 whatever a unit employ.

14 Well, I think to mark its, to show its presence within the

15 system, at the broadest level, the unit might be expected to wear the

16 standard uniform. It might wear a badge of -- a cap badge. It might

17 wear shoulder flashes, as they're known, to show that it is part of, not

18 just that unit, but part of the bigger formation or structure to which it

19 belongs. So there would be a shoulder flash to show that are you part of

20 battalion A and part division 1, and so on.

21 Then there will be, as well as an uniform and insignia, there

22 would be flags and so on. And beneath all of that, there would also be -

23 and, of course, you would not be able to see this, as this is nothing to

24 see - but there would be common understanding and common doctrine. There

25 would also be a sense in which they all work in, more or less, the same

1 way and follow the same standards of training and deployment and

2 operations and so on.

3 Q. And what if a unit did not display such typical traits, for

4 example, it didn't wear army insignia or fly a flag, what conclusion

5 could you draw, if any?

6 A. I think one of two conclusions, either that this unit was a

7 special unit; for example, a special forces units, a commando unit of

8 some sort that was required not to wear any uniform or show any insignia

9 in order that it could act covertly. That would be on possibility.

10 Another interpretation, I think, would be that that unit considered

11 itself apart from the organisation, and I think it would be at least

12 unusual or would be perceived as unusual for this unit not to be behaving

13 in the same corporate way that all the other units were doing.

14 Q. And, so, if the unit did not act covertly but participated in

15 regular combat, would that fall into the first category that you

16 mentioned, special forces unit, or the second category?

17 A. I think probably the second category, if they were -- and the

18 military used the term "regular" to distinguish between, as it were,

19 normal armed forces and those that are undertaking special operations.

20 If a regular armed force were to be seen to be setting itself apart from

21 the normal command structure, then it would be regarded as unusual, and

22 perhaps even disloyal in some way.

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: And what would be the commander's responsibilities

24 under those circumstances?

25 THE WITNESS: I think that a commander might well wish that

1 sub-unit to -- because we are talking about, I think, a sub-unit

2 attaching itself to a command structure, I think it would be, in those

3 circumstances, reasonable for the senior commander to accept that that

4 sub-unit was -- should behave as if it were a normal part of the command

5 structure, wear the normal uniform, and so on. It should adopt the same

6 demonstrations of loyalty and team-working as all other units; otherwise,

7 there would have to be some explanation why it didn't do so.

8 JUDGE MOLOTO: But what happens if it doesn't, if it doesn't fall

9 in line?

10 THE WITNESS: Well, then, this either becomes a matter of

11 discipline, the subordinate commander might have been given an

12 instruction to wear the standard uniform, or whatever; and then there's a

13 matter, as I said, of military discipline between the senior and

14 subordinate commander. Assuming all the time that this sub-unit is

15 presenting itself as part of the hierarchy, then I think it would have to

16 be dealt with as a disciplinary matter.

17 Otherwise, I think the senior commander would be excused for

18 thinking and for supposing that this subunit, in spite of what was being

19 said, was actually running according to its own means or its own

20 aspirations in some way. The point I'm getting at is that he would not

21 feel that if this subunit could pass that very basic test of wearing the

22 same uniform and supporting the same insignia and so on, then perhaps he

23 might not be able to trust it in time of conflict.

24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

25 Mr. Robson.

1 MR. ROBSON:

2 Q. You mentioned earlier about the Hollywood-style of leadership and

3 how armies try to move away from that, so that units do not follow a

4 specific leader.

5 What I'd like to ask you is: What if a unit only recognised the

6 authority of certain individuals within an army and attempted to obtain

7 directions directly from such persons outside of the regular chain of

8 command, what conclusions, if any, could you draw?

9 A. Then, I would say that a traditional analysis of these things

10 would suggest that this unit was not part of the command chain of the

11 hierarchy and did not respect the notion of unity of command, and I would

12 draw and all of the points that I've made earlier this morning, I think.

13 Q. Okay. Now, I'd like to move to, it's page 11, paragraph 23 --

14 sorry. Before we turn to that, paragraph 22, where the heading is

15 "Purpose." In this paragraph, you talk about command being concerned by

16 with the purposeful of military means to achieve a military, strategic,

17 and, ultimately, political end.

18 Could you elaborate on this a little, please?

19 A. Yes. I think behind this paragraph is something of my own

20 interpretation and my own understanding; and, therefore, my -- I suppose

21 my political, philosophical preferences, in that I believe in Western

22 liberal democracies. Liberal force should be used only to achieve a

23 political purpose. When that purpose is achieved, the civil political

24 control should reassert itself entirely.

25 As I say here, I think, if a military organisation pursues

1 something other than a political purpose, and if it is -- or if its goal

2 is the use of military force as an end in itself, then that, as far as I

3 can see and as far as I would interpret and explain things, that would be

4 closer to militarism.

5 Q. And are you alone when you take this point of view or are there

6 others sharing this opinion?

7 A. I think I would be supported in that point by every person who

8 has read and understood and agrees with the writings of Carl von

9 Clausewitz, who, as an early nineteenth century Prussian strategist and

10 who, many would argue, in the word which I come from, in the teaching of

11 strategic studies and so on, is the person who more than any other has

12 understood in the modern era the relationship between the use of armed

13 force and the civil political control of that -- of that facility.

14 Q. In the next paragraph of your report, paragraph 23, you state

15 that the relationship between the military activity and political goal is

16 one which is widely taught and understood in modern armed forces, and

17 then you go on to use the term "levels of war."

18 What is the origins of the term "levels of war"?

19 A. This is another -- another difficult question. I think a similar

20 question was asked earlier.

21 Again, it is really part of the fundamental understanding of the

22 way a military is organised between strategic and operational and

23 tactical. I think you can certainly find this expression on the

24 worldwide web, if you were to Google it, and I believe you could even

25 find it on Wikipedia. But you don't find, I don't think, a definitive

1 source for this term because it is so widespread and so widely

2 understood.

3 That said, there is another late 18th, early 19th century French

4 military strategist, Baron Antoine Henri de Gomani - just Gomani would

5 work - who referred to a political and a tactical and a strategic level.

6 So he is often attributed as the source of this idea in the modern era

7 for a division between levels. But I think it goes back much further and

8 is part of military common sense.

9 Q. And you say that this relationship between military activity and

10 political goal is widely taught. Where would these concepts be taught?

11 A. Really, from the moment that you begin military training, and I'd

12 argue probably at any level. So this isn't just something that would be

13 confined to officers and leaders. It would be taught broadly across the

14 military system. So it would be in basic training organisations; in

15 military academies, such as the one I attended, the Royal Military

16 Academy at Sandhurst; and it would be taught in staff colleges, such as

17 the one that I taught at, the Joint Services Command and Staff College in

18 the UK.

19 Q. And if we could look at the levels of war in a little more

20 detail, can you explain for us what is the strategic level?

21 A. As I say in the paper, this is the level at which national

22 security policy and defence strategy are decided. It used to be -- some

23 people used to think in terms of their being two strategic levels: A

24 political level and a military level, political strategy and military

25 strategy. I prefer, and I think I would say a lot of people, now prefer

1 just the one term. At this highest level, there is within government a

2 capacity to decide when and how and for what reason to use armed force.

3 That decision making process is not entirely civil and political; it is

4 informed by military expertise. So, at that highest strategic level, you

5 have civil decision informed by military expertise, and the output should

6 be a strategic decision or instruction.

7 Q. Moving to the operational level, are you able to elaborate for us

8 what that is?

9 A. There can be some confusion in the word -- in the use of the term

10 "operations." All military use the term "operations" as an euphemism for

11 combat, as in: I have been on operations or we are on operations in Iraq

12 and Afghanistan and so on.

13 The operational level is doctrinally something different. It is

14 at the level of divisions and brigades, where the commanders are using

15 their military force to implement or to give effect to the strategic

16 decision.

17 So, at that level, they are commanders, soldiers and commanders

18 of military forces. That is all they do. They are not in the business

19 of political debate. They are professional military people undertaking

20 military tasks, but they do so in order to give effect to the strategic

21 division which has come down to them.

22 Q. And then, finally, could you elaborate upon the tactical level of

23 war, please.

24 A. Yes, this is fighting. This is contact, as it is termed in the

25 military, with an enemy, in order to achieve the operational goal which

1 has been passed down to you. So it is actually, if you like, the

2 operational is planning the use of your force and manoeuvring them into

3 place, and then the tactics is actually undertaking the fighting or the

4 capturing or whatever you like.

5 Q. Now, returning to the strategic level, what sorts of tasks and

6 duties would the professional head of an army - and by that, I mean the

7 most senior military officer in an army - working at the strategic level

8 typically carry out?

9 A. At that level, in government, the professional military head;

10 that is to say, let me use the UK as an example, each armed service in

11 the UK has a professional military head. There's a chief of the General

12 Staff for the army; there's a chief of the air staff for the air force;

13 and there's a first sea lord for the navy, a curious historical blip

14 there.

15 Each of those is the professional head of their armed service,

16 and their duty, in a sense, is to represent their armed service in this

17 political military decision making process. It happens that, in the UK,

18 their reputation of their service is funneled or channel by one further

19 level, which is a chief of the Defence staff who is their chief, and that

20 person ought to ensure that all of this professional expertise and advice

21 goes through to the political process.

22 The assumption, I think, behind this is that this is such a

23 difficult and arcane activity that it would be unreasonable to expect

24 political leaders to know absolutely what could and could not be

25 achieved. So when they are at the point of making -- or deliberating and

1 making these decisions, they would need to have people in this system at

2 this very high level who could say, actually, you can't use, I don't

3 know, one division to do more than one thing or whatever.

4 So it would be an advisory capacity at that level.

5 Q. And just dealing with the professional head of the army, how

6 would that person typically direct his subordinates? What would he do?

7 A. So this would be the professional head of an army in, let's say,

8 a capital representing his armed service?

9 Q. Yes.

10 A. At this level, it really isn't so much of a matter of command in

11 the way I have been describing it early, for units and formation atlas

12 are going to be deployed on combat. At this very high level, it really

13 is more like the management of a business. So you would have a chief

14 executive officer, and, of course, he is in charge, but around him are

15 specialists. There would be a chief financial officer; there would be

16 someone in charge of human resources; there would be someone in charge of

17 equipment; someone in charge of recruitment; so on and so forth.

18 And all those people, although subordinate to the chief, in a

19 sense, they are experts in their own right. So it is not is much a

20 matter of ordering. The chief, there is no order that he could give to,

21 I don't know, a director of equipment, other than, for example, "We need

22 to make sure that we can equip our armed forces correctly." That is

23 generally understood anyway. That is what he is there for, in the first

24 place. So it is a slightly different atmosphere at that level.

25 Q. Right. Okay. Now I'd like to turn to the part of your report

1 that deals with military control, and we can find this at page 14 and

2 onwards.

3 In the preamble at the top of the page, we can see, in the last

4 sentence, you say that military control involves the following: Command

5 infrastructure, planning, communications and liaison, information,

6 intelligence and reporting, logistics and supply, and discipline.

7 What is the basis for your making that statement?

8 A. Well, very close to the basis for responding to an earlier

9 comment, in that I have been working in analysing, teaching, and

10 explaining this often curious world for some 25 years. And if asked how

11 I do think a military control system works, those are the elements I

12 would say are essential to it.

13 Q. I would like to turn to the first element, which is command

14 infrastructure, and you use an example of a typical operational

15 headquarters at the level of a brigade or a division, and you said that

16 is the specialist within that headquarters.

17 Again, it may be a simple question: Why is the command

18 headquarters divided into different specialist areas?

19 A. Do you mean what I have shown here, the G1, G2, G3, and so on?

20 Q. Yes, that is the example-- no, no. I'm talking about them more

21 broadly, I believe. Perhaps you could just explain why a command is

22 divided up into different specialist areas?

23 A. Really, because at this level -- well, perhaps I could go back to

24 one step.

25 At a lower level, all of these have to be dealt with. At any

1 level of command, someone has to be making sure that -- that the food is

2 there and the fuel is there. So all these things have to be happening.

3 But at very low level, because ipso facto, this is a small organisation,

4 it is possible for one person to undertake more than one task. So you

5 could have at a battalion level, and I speak from experience, it could be

6 possible for an officer to be in charge of operational planning and to be

7 in charge of human resource planning. It's thought that that is a

8 reasonable way of doing things, and it is feasible.

9 As you get higher up the chain of command and as the organisation

10 fattens, the task is simply bigger, so you need a specialist in each of

11 these areas. And as you get to the top of the command chain where the

12 task is enormous, you find within each other area another small command

13 chain has built up. So there would be a specialist in, I don't know, in

14 ammunition supply; then beneath him, he might have sub-specialists, one

15 whom works on rifle ammunition, let's say, and another one who works on

16 artillery ammunition.

17 So you just make sure that everything is covered at the level at

18 which it is needed and with the capacity that it is needed, is the point

19 I make, I think, with the capacity that is needed at the right level.

20 Q. So at the highest level, within a specialist department, you

21 would find sub-specialisation; is that a fair statement?

22 A. Yes, you could, absolutely, yeah.

23 Q. Now, moving away from that on page 15, paragraph 30, you state

24 that -- and this is the penultimate sentence at the paragraph at the top

25 of the page. You say that any commander must, of course -- must also, of

1 course, presuppose obedience and dependability on the part of his

2 subordinate commanders, and a subordinate unit will be expected to be

3 able and prepared to carry out instructions.

4 I believe you have touched upon this earlier, but can you explain

5 what you mean by that sentence?

6 A. I mean this: That when a senior -- when any commander, when any

7 commander is given a task or a mission, he then looks to his or her

8 resources and begins planning to go meet that mission. And as he does

9 so, unless there is some special reason to suppose otherwise, if, for

10 example, one of his sub- units, to use an earlier example, is exhausted

11 or is full of new recruits or whatever, then he would adjust his plan

12 accordingly.

13 But without that special reasoning, he would, or she, would

14 assume that the units and facilities and resources under his command

15 would available. They would be absolutely critical to the planning

16 presumptions and suppositions he would begin to make. He couldn't go

17 into planning with, I don't know, moving one battalion to the left and

18 one to the right, if he didn't know that those battalions would do as he

19 said they would do.

20 Q. And in the scenario that have you just mentioned where a

21 commander is ordering a battalion from the left to the right, or, in

22 fact, issuing any type of instruction, would the commander normally

23 expect to receive confirm from the subordinate unit that the order or

24 instruction has been carried out?

25 A. Yes. I think he would, usually, in fact, if not always. As I

1 just said, the senior commander would assume that the subordinate

2 commander and unit would do as instructed, and the senior commander would

3 then need to know, because is he in command and running everything, he

4 would need to know that his instruction has been carried out. So,

5 typically, let's say, you would find the subordinate commander informing

6 his superior that he had carried out the task as instructed.

7 Importantly, if he had been unable to carry out the task as

8 instructed, because of some difficulty, because he ran out of fuel or met

9 the enemy or something, then it would be crucial to pass that information

10 to the superior, so that the superior is then in a position to adjust the

11 plan.

12 Q. All right. We'll come to reporting in more detail in a moment.

13 MR. ROBSON: Sorry, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE MOLOTO: This relates to what I asked you a little earlier

15 before we took the break. I hear you saying here that, to use an earlier

16 example, if a battalion is exhausted or is full of new recruits or

17 whatever, then he would adjust his plan accordingly.

18 Earlier, when I asked you this question, you said that he could

19 talk back to the senior, and are you able to reconcile these two apparent

20 inconsistencies? I'm not suggesting that there are inconsistencies, but

21 I am just saying that I am understanding you slightly differently now.

22 Now it seem as if the subordinate commander is expected to adjust

23 his plan. Earlier, I got the impression that he could talk back and say,

24 "I'm sorry, Mr. Senior Commander, I can't that job, because my troops are

25 tired.

1 THE WITNESS: I apologise for any confusion or any inconsistency

2 I might have suggested. I don't think there is inconsistency. What I am

3 trying describe is a system which is iterative at every level.

4 So a commander in the middle of this system would be given a task

5 by his superior, he would then interrogate his subordinates to be sure

6 that he knows exactly what the level of the fitness of the units are and

7 if there are any problems so on and so forth.

8 On the assumption that if there are no special problems, then a

9 unit must be there and be dependable and able to do what is asked for it.

10 He would then be able to report to his superior that the order that has

11 been given has bee met.

12 So I'm not suggesting that there is debate. I'm not suggesting

13 that there is refusal or anything to accept an instruction, but there is

14 discussion about how best to achieve it. That goes on through the

15 system, and there are a series of exchanges of information. So the

16 superior asks the subordinates, and the subordinates ask their

17 subordinates, and so on. Then it repeats back up the chain of command,

18 such that in the end the mission or the task can be completed.

19 So there is a constant flow of instructions and requests an

20 information going back again.

21 JUDGE MOLOTO: I guess the point where I asked the question and

22 where I still need a bit of clarity is in the event that a subordinate

23 unit or the commander of a subordinate unit, say, is unable to carry out

24 the task. As you given the examples that you gave, he has got new troops

25 or he is troops are tired, can he say or can he send word back and say,

1 "Sorry, Mr. Senior, I'm not able to carry out this task because my troops

2 are tired."

3 THE WITNESS: It would happen, Your Honour, more like this: In

4 the process of briefing and giving orders, that commander would say this

5 is difficult for me for the following reasons, and explains his position

6 to the superior. His superior is then in a position of knowing what the

7 compatibilities are of his resources; and then it is for him to make the

8 decision. Of course, he might, even so, still decide to send that unit

9 to do the task, but at least he does so from the basis of knowledge.

10 That what is what is so critical, that he must know what his

11 subordinate units and commanders are capable of all the time, and he can

12 only know that on the basis of the information or regular information

13 flows or, indeed, at that planning meeting that would take place.

14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

15 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

16 MR. ROBSON:

17 Q. Just to pick up on that last answer, you said that the superior

18 commander could still decide to send the unit to do the task. If the

19 superior commander issued an order to a subordinate unit to complete a

20 task, knowing that, for example, its men may be tired, could the

21 subordinate commander of the unit point blank refuse to carry out the

22 order?

23 A. No. I do apologise if I have given this impression, that it is

24 open to refuse. It is imperative to give advice and information on the

25 state of your unit to your superior, so that the superior knows ideally

1 what he can and cannot expect of you. But in some circumstances, it

2 might well be that your under-resourced unit is the best one that he has,

3 your superior; and, therefore, he might decide that that is the one,

4 nevertheless, that will be used; because in the end, the superior is

5 running to an order that he has been given, that he has to meet, and so

6 on.

7 Q. We'll come to reporting in a little more detail in a moment.

8 Before that, I would like to touch on the part of your report that deals

9 with planning, and this is it at page -- it's page 15 and it is here in

10 front of us.

11 You talk about the different types of planning, at the different

12 levels. In terms of planning at the strategic level, you say that this

13 involves careful articulation of long-range objectives. In what ways

14 would you normally expect these strategic objectives to be expressed?

15 A. The use of the term "long-range objectives" here is, in part, to

16 distinguish the strategic level from the operational and tactical, which

17 are much more immediate. What I mean by long-range objectives, at this

18 strategic level, well, really, we might be talking about defend the

19 country or defeat the enemy. These are the biggest possible ideas you

20 can imagine. We have decided to use armed force in order to rescue this,

21 defeat that, or whatever, a big long-term goal that has to be pursued.

22 So, in strict military terms, it doesn't have much meaning, but

23 it is the context in which everything below is to take place and is to

24 happen. As you go further down the chain, right down at the bottom, the

25 objective becomes take that hill or capture that building. But it is

1 done in the context of the high level strategic goal which is to whatever

2 it was.

3 Q. Okay. And, in this paragraph, you say that a commander issuing a

4 plan should set out orders to be achieved and why, but the how should be

5 left to subordinates.

6 Can you explain for us why this is and what would the

7 consequences of a commander telling his subordinates how to carry out a

8 plan?

9 A. Yes. This expresses an idea which is very common; in fact, it is

10 fundamental in certainly Western European and US and many other countries

11 in the world that have trained in, if I can call it, the sort of Western

12 European way. There is probably a better expression for that, but I

13 don't have it.

14 The idea is that you have very well trained and very capable

15 young people who are in a position of junior leadership, as well as being

16 soldiers or whatever, as well as being military professionals, and the

17 thinking is that you should have a system which allows them to use their

18 imagination and their knowledge and their initiative, more to the point,

19 to respond as accurately as anyone can to the immediate situation. This

20 is critical.

21 What is required is that there should be somebody, somewhere who

22 can produce the most suitable response to the problem at hand, and the

23 thinking is the way to achieve that is by trusting in the subordinate

24 that is confronting that problem, rather than issuing from on high, from,

25 you know, miles on high, a direct order as to how such-and-such a thing

1 should be achieved.

2 In strategic thinking, there are very broadly two approaches, and

3 they both employ German terms. One is [German spoken] which is order

4 based tactics. You only do what are you instructed to do and nothing

5 else. The modern, much more dynamic approach is known as [German spoken]

6 which is extraction. You understand what your superior is to do, and

7 you, then, as a junior, undertake your mission in order to achieve that.

8 But are you trusted at that level to do your job.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Is part of the answer to that also not that the

11 junior official is closer to the situation and understands better than

12 the senior commander who is a little far removed and he would know the

13 how. You know, if I say take that hill, in order to approach it from the

14 south or the east, or from the east or the west, or from or both sides,

15 you know, that's his little plan, his attack plan. You couldn't

16 prescribed that from him from a distance.

17 THE WITNESS: You shouldn't. That is precisely the argument.

18 You do occasionally find some commanders, in all armies or forces, who

19 believe it is their task to give micro-detailed instructions: Attack the

20 hill from the north only. That is just perceived as militarily nonsense,

21 because that person clearly has a view and the responsibility of

22 something, but it is very wide and very broad and complex. What he

23 doesn't have, as you said, sir, is that view of the hill and the best to

24 get to the top of it.

25 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

1 MR. ROBSON:

2 Q. In terms of planning at the different level us that mention,

3 strategic, operational, and tactical, does the type of information and

4 level of detail needed to plan vary at those different levels?

5 A. It certainly does, yes. At a very low level, if you were a

6 low-level commander in charge of 30 soldiers, what is known as a platoon,

7 then you would expect to have at your fingerer tips information as to,

8 for example, the number of rifle cartridges each soldier had, down to,

9 you know, the difference between 20 and 30 would be important; how many

10 water bottles each of them had; really micro-information.

11 But what that platoon commander would then pass up to his company

12 commander would be a consolidated version of that; either that "We, my

13 platoon, we need another 100 rounds of ammunition or we need another

14 three cannisters of water." As it goes further up the chain of command,

15 so the information is more and more consolidated, it would be ludicrous,

16 for example, for a divisional commander to be beleaguered with

17 information as to how many water bottles each soldier in his 8.000-manned

18 division was carrying. He doesn't need or want to have this information.

19 Q. I want to deal with paragraph 32, which is communications at the

20 bottom of the page.

21 And in this paragraph, you explain how each level communicates

22 with the level above and also the level below, and you give the example

23 of a platoon commander communicates with his section commander below, but

24 also he communications with his company commander above. This goes up

25 and down throughout the chain of command.

1 What happens if a commander at a certainly level, for example,

2 let's say the brigade level, does not report to his immediate superior at

3 the divisional level but jumps that level and reports to the corps

4 commander two levels above him?

5 A. There might be special circumstances in which that would take

6 place. The brigade commander might be, as it were, detached from the

7 normal chain of command and undertaking a specific task for the corps

8 commander. This is also commonplace. But what is key is that everybody

9 would know that this was taking place. It would be a very special

10 arrangement.

11 So the division, which would be nominally responsible for the

12 brigade in question, would understand that the brigade had been detached

13 and was now answering to the corps, and, therefore, would not expect or

14 require reports from the brigade and would understand what was happening.

15 So there wouldn't be any conflict.

16 If, though, a brigade under normal circumstances were to decide

17 for itself to report outside or around the chain of command to a senior

18 level, a more senior level, then that would be, as I said earlier, to

19 contradict the principle of unity of command and would be to go outside

20 the chain of command, which is an anathema, and that whole structure

21 begins to become inoperable. People don't know who is doing what, with

22 what resources, for what means, for what ends.

23 Q. A linked question, and perhaps similar to something we touched

24 upon earlier. What if a commander of a military unit, instead of

25 reporting to his immediate superior in the chain of command, sought to

1 report directly to and receive instructions from the highest political

2 levels of the state to which the army belonged?

3 A. Well, that would be to step outside of the command chain with

4 rather massive self-confidence, I would have to say. It would be such a

5 flagrant abuse of the whole system, and it would also send, I think, a

6 very peculiar message, that this unit considers itself to be in some kind

7 of special relationship with the political leadership.

8 Now, as I think I have been saying, there might be circumstances

9 in which a very small unit could almost answer directly to a political

10 leader. It is very common practice to use very, very small units of

11 special forces, down to a handful of men, half a dozen, four; and they

12 could exactly send reports straight back to the head of government.

13 But as I keep saying, that would be a special arrangement that

14 everybody would understand: That is the way that part of the military

15 system works. For a regular, normal unit to do the same thing would be

16 presumptuous, to say the lest.

17 Q. In your report you stress the importance of a commander having a

18 clear, accurate, and realtime picture of everything taking place within

19 his area of responsibility through the receipt of report.

20 Can I ask you what if a subordinate unit is comprised of

21 soldiers that do not speak the same language as a superior commander?

22 How important is it that there is a common basis for communication?

23 A. It is very important, of course, and the ideal would be that all

24 units and all troops would speak the same language. But military

25 organisations have long since got round this problem, because it is

1 conceivable that you could be certainly in an alliance, so you could be

2 fighting alongside troops from other country. The way to get round it is

3 by use of a specialist known as a liaison officer, and LO. Liaison

4 officers would be deployed where ever necessary to act as a bridge

5 between the different units from different countries and with different

6 language. Obviously, that person would have to be proficient in the

7 languages relevant. That is one way round it.

8 The other way round it, and I speak I think largely from

9 experience and knowledge of the way the North Atlantic Treaty has done

10 this, you standardise as far as you possibly can the way those different

11 nationalities do things. You have standard agreements on how forces are

12 moved, how they will replenish themselves, and so on. So you try to

13 standardise everything. So even though there are language difficulties

14 the organisation, as a whole, works as coherently as it can.

15 Q. And what sort of problems could arise if those features are not in

16 place; In other words, there is no liaison officer or standard agreement,

17 if you're able to say?

18 A. Well, I would imagine there would be little possibility of the

19 commanders, either side of this unit in question, understanding what that

20 unit was going on -- was doing; and that, therefore, brings us back to

21 this problem in military thinking of operational security. It would not

22 be possible to know that that unit had received and understood its orders

23 in the same way that all the other units had received and understood

24 their orders because of a linguistic difficulty, and it would not be

25 possible to know exactly what they were doing because nobody can

1 understand what they are saying. Translation would be crucial.

2 Q. And in -- in the combat situation where there's ongoing fighting,

3 how important is speed in terms of passing information?

4 A. Very, very important. But there has to be a balance struck

5 between speed and accuracy. If could I give one illustration of this:

6 At a very low level, if a unit comes into contact with an enemy force and

7 is fired upon, the requirement is that it should pass as much information

8 as it possibly can to the next level up, and so on, up the command chain,

9 so that the end a corps commander would understand that part of his

10 formation has made contact with the enemy.

11 But the first requirement for that soldier who has made contact

12 with the enemy is not to get out books and pamphlets and start writing

13 lengthy reports and sending them by radio or whatever, it is actually to

14 do what a soldier must do, which is respond to the contact and start

15 shooting back or whatever else is required.

16 So you would have two things happen: You would have an immediate

17 report which is sent, which simply can be one word, "contact," which goes

18 all the way up the command chain. Everybody understands what that means,

19 "We are now in touch with the enemy." It would be followed by, "Wait

20 out," or equivalence in military communications. That means, "I'm in

21 contact. I'm a little bit busy at the moment. But as soon as I have

22 dealt with the problem, I can tell you exactly what has happened."

23 It would be followed up by a detailed contact report: It was, in

24 the end, only three men, or actually it looks a bit bigger than that, and

25 this could be quite important. That information would then go back. So

1 there has got to be a balance between alerting and informing.

2 Q. And what the consequences if that sort of information is not

3 passed up to the superior commander?

4 A. Then the superior commander could not know, unless he had some

5 other means of knowing, and I can't think what they meet be, unless he

6 had some sort of satellite or aerial surveillance or something, that

7 commander could not know that arguably the most important aspect of

8 military activity had begun. And if the commander doesn't know that,

9 then this is disastrous: What is he to do, how is he to move his force

10 around, what does it actually mean, is this a big part of the enemy or a

11 small part.

12 I am talking, obviously, in very basic terms here, but I hope I

13 am explaining my point.

14 Q. Sure. Now, at paragraph 36, you deal with information,

15 intelligence, and reporting; and paragraph 36 deals with what you have

16 just mentioned, the requirement to report enemy activity.

17 If we turn over to the page, on to page 17, you also talk about

18 the need to report other information, such as food and water.

19 So apart from reporting enemy activity and reporting on food and

20 water status, are there any other issues that a unit should provide

21 information on, on a regular basis, to its superior?

22 A. If it -- as much information as really is necessary. I mean,

23 this is fairly open-ended. The obvious ones, as you said, would be those

24 resources which are essential to the immediate task: Ammunition, food,

25 and water, and so on.

1 There would also, though, if it were a mechanised unit, it would

2 want to let the command chain know its fuel status. That would usually

3 be expressed in terms of -- not in terms of how many gallons I have or

4 how many litres of diesel fuel I have, but how many days of movement time

5 I have able to me. All that information would have to be passed back,

6 and you could also pass back casualty information. I have 30 men and

7 they're all fit and uninjured. I have 30 men, but two of them have been

8 slightly injured, three of them have got some sort of food or water-borne

9 illness but they are still able to fight, and so on.

10 So you just pass as much information as you can relevant to your

11 circumstances.

12 Q. And, typically, how often should this information be passed?

13 A. It would be passed routinely on a daily basis from low level all

14 the way back up. So there would be this really constant awareness. The

15 military use a term "situational awareness," and that has two parts. It

16 is knowing as closely as you possibly can what your adversary is doing,

17 but it is also knowing as closely as you possibly can what your own

18 forces are capable of and where they are and what they might be

19 confronting.

20 So there is -- in many ways, it is surprising. There is an

21 enormous requirement for the flow of information, constantly. In a

22 sense, if a unit doesn't supply the information constantly on a daily

23 basis, that becomes an indicator of some sort of a problem. So it can

24 actually have other uses.

25 MR. ROBSON: My colleague is telling me that my last question and

1 your answer overlaps, and I apologise because I might perhaps be speaking

2 a little quickly. If I just bear with me a moment.

3 I don't know if it is something that be corrected at a later

4 stage. We can see that there is a cue placed at next to what, I believe,

5 was the answer.

6 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Mr. Robson, you never take

7 account of the fact that the what is being said is also translated in

8 French.

9 MR. ROBSON: I apologise, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Just so that we don't make presumptions,

11 Mr. Robson --

12 MR. ROBSON: Yes, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE MOLOTO: -- why don't you ask the witness to repeat the

14 answer to the question where the cue is, so that we know what answer is.

15 MR. ROBSON: I apologise, Dr. Cornish. I will ask that you

16 again.

17 Q. Typically, how often should this information be passed?

18 A. My response to that question begins with the words, "It would be

19 passed routinely on a daily basis from low level all the way back up,"

20 and then the remainder of the answer follows.

21 MR. ROBSON: I can hear the interpretation on General Delic's

22 headphones as well, so I will bear that in mind, Your Honours.

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: Say that again.

24 MR. ROBSON: I can hear the interpretation behind me, so I will

25 use that as an indicator as to when to slow down.

1 JUDGE MOLOTO: I thought you wanted him to reduce the volume.

2 MR. ROBSON:

3 Q. Now, as to information about the situation in a unit such as

4 combat results and personnel states, what if a unit did not send a report

5 to its superior command, but instead sent that information to an entity

6 or body outside of the army organisation, what conclusions, if any, could

7 you draw?

8 A. This then takes this is issue to the next level of

9 presumptuousness. Bad enough to skip one level in the command chain;

10 much worse to skip it altogether and go to the political leadership; and

11 then completely inconceivable that it could go to a different political

12 leadership. What on earth is going on?

13 I wouldn't really know how to describe that situation, in the

14 absence of there being a multi-national alliance operation of some sort,

15 whereby you could have a certain national unit reporting through its

16 national command chain, alongside another national command chain. But

17 the idea that a body that was nominally integrate the within one command

18 chain, could report to a completely different politico-military system, I

19 would be baffled. I wouldn't really know how to describe it.

20 Q. Paragraph 37 deals with logistics and supply. Where would a

21 military unit typically get its weapons, ammunition, equipment, and food

22 from?

23 A. The weapons you would normally -- they would be issued and they

24 would be part of the combat organisation of that unit; and so, you know,

25 you would have whatever you, as an infantry battalion, required to be a

1 infantry battalion. It would be given to you. Then as far as the

2 re-supply is concerned, each unit, even a very low level, a very small

3 unit, would have a certain amount of re-supply capacity. You could

4 imagine, even at a very low level, of a section of troops of eight

5 infantrymen, that there might be someone carrying spare ammunition or

6 there might be a place where they had a bit of spare water or whatever.

7 So there would be very low level re-supply.

8 Otherwise, whole system depends upon a very elaborate and very

9 complicated, complex, and extensive logistics operation which begins as

10 far back as you can imagine with enormous amounts of container traffic,

11 and everything on air traffic and so on, that then just delivers and

12 pushes all this materiel further and further forward, until the point at

13 which it is used.

14 I think I gave some figures there from the first Gulf War, just

15 to give some idea of how much can be involved. Obviously, this was a

16 very large military operation, but I think it is indicative of what the

17 material referred to as a logistic tail, the size of the operation that

18 must exist behind the actual military head of the operation.

19 Q. And would it be unusual or -- let me ask that a different way.

20 What conclusions could you draw, if any, if a material unit was

21 outside the regular supply chain, in that it received money, weapons,

22 ammunition, equipment, and food from sources external to the army?

23 A. At some level, there has always been and will always be within

24 armed forces the ability, in fact the necessity, to requisition. So let

25 me give you another simple example.

1 If you are a commander of a unit which moves around on trucks,

2 and your trucks run out of fuel, then it might make sense, militarily,

3 rather than wait for the logistics system to produce fuel tankers that

4 can come forward to your position and refuel you, it might make sense, if

5 you come across such a thing, to refuel those vehicles, through a

6 requisition, from a civil fuel station which you happen to come across.

7 Likewise, food; throughout military history, armies have always

8 used local resources to nourish themselves, sometimes often in a more

9 civilised way than at others. Sometimes it is more of a contract that is

10 struck and payments are made or promissory notes are given at other

11 times. As we know from military history, it is simply a matter of just

12 taking everything that you can and, as is described, living off the land.

13 I beg your pardon.

14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Please, finish.

15 THE WITNESS: So forgive me for a long-winded first part of an

16 answer. But when it comes to other things like weapons and ammunition

17 and equipment, then you're getting into the real, in a sense, the life

18 blood of this system, because if the system doesn't have a close

19 understanding of the expenditure rates of ammunitions and fuel, and so

20 on, of all of its units, and the only way to get that understanding is

21 through reports and requisitions or requirements -- I'm sorry,

22 requirements for more ammunition and so on, if it doesn't have that

23 understanding, then it can't form a picture of how capable that unit is.

24 It might that be the unit has got ammunition from somewhere else

25 because it came across some or it is refueled from somewhere else; but if

1 it doesn't know that that has happened through the normal system, then

2 there can't be much confidence that that unit will be able to do what is

3 expected of it.

4 As for money, this is not something that I have never come

5 across. No, I wouldn't know how that could work, not in the least. It

6 does, apart from very low level, it does tend, in times of operations and

7 conflict, it tends to run something like a cashless economy.

8 JUDGE MOLOTO: What would say about, if anything with respect to

9 this point, the use of booty for replenishment?

10 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, do you mean the use of captured

11 treasures of some sort or money?

12 JUDGE MOLOTO: Exactly. It could have been money, it could have

13 been fuel, it could have been food, it could have been ammunition.

14 THE WITNESS: Again, I guess I won't be naive enough to suggest

15 that won't ever happen. Of course, it does happen and will continue to

16 happen. But I would say that, in an established military system of the

17 sort with which I'm familiar, that should not happen, for a number of

18 reasons: Partly because it is not thought to be the best way to treat

19 those people in whose territory you are operating; but also more

20 seriously, militarily, there has to be quality control as to what is

21 provided.

22 So there has to be confidence that when a unit is given fuel,

23 that that is the right fuel, it is high quality fuel and is able to fuel

24 their engines, and that the ammunition is of a certain quality, and that

25 it will at least fit the guns that they are going to be firing with. So

1 there has to be quality control, which could be completely absent.

2 What you describe, of course, happens, but I think for

3 established armies and armed forces, this is not considered a

4 professional way of doing things, and it also has professional penalties

5 in terms of the passage of information.

6 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

7 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] I have a question on this

8 particular aspect.

9 To supply or re-supply, you spoke about the possibility to

10 requisition, commandeer. Would it also be acceptable to have voluntary

11 contributions, instead of pretending, by requisitioning or commandeering,

12 to re-supply by payment? Would it be possible?

13 THE WITNESS: Yes, I guess it could. I don't know of a

14 circumstances in which it has taken place, but I can certainly imagine

15 that it might do.

16 However, I would say that if there were to be an organisation or

17 an individual or some sponsor somewhere willing to do such a thing, then

18 it would be preferable for that offer to be made at the high level to

19 support the overall operation, because what you would try to avoid are

20 these idiosyncrasies, these little curiosities of who has what and where

21 did they get it from. Indeed, there might be a loyalty that I mentioned

22 to this. If this unit is supported specifically by its own logistics,

23 re- supply route, what does that mean entirely? What is actually going

24 on? Can we really depend on them once again, Your Honour?

25 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

1 MR. ROBSON:

2 Q. Now, if there was a military unit that did not depend upon the

3 regular supply chain for its resources and had independent financial

4 support, could such a situation have an impact on the command and control

5 over that unit, are you able to say?

6 MR. MUNDIS: Objection. That's a leading question.

7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Robson.

8 MR. ROBSON: Your Honour, what I'll do is I'll reformulate the

9 question, if I may.

10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.

11 MR. ROBSON:

12 Q. So if you're able to say, and if you can't help me, please say

13 so, what consequences might stem from a unit receiving external resources

14 and financial support?

15 A. I would, again, say that it invites questions as to the level of

16 integration of that unit within the overall system and, indeed, of the

17 dependability of that unit, for all the reasons I've given. Really,

18 there would not be a clear idea, there could not be a clear idea of

19 precisely what that unit was capable of, if it were not reporting and

20 requiring through the standard logistics chain of its needs.

21 Yes, I think I'd leave it that the. Thank you.

22 MR. ROBSON: Your Honours, I have just a couple of small issues

23 to deal with, and I'm looking at the clock, so I think it would be an

24 appropriate time to take our break now.

25 JUDGE MOLOTO: It is, indeed. We'll take a break and come back

1 at half past 12.00.

2 Court adjourned.

3 --- Recess taken at 11.59 a.m.

4 --- On resuming at 12.30 p.m.

5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Yes, Mr. Robson.

6 MR. ROBSON: Thank you.

7 Q. Dr. Cornish, I'd now like to take you to the part of your report

8 which deals with discipline, and specifically what I'm interested in is

9 at page 19 of the report at paragraph 44.

10 And in talking about military discipline, in this paragraph, we

11 can see that you say the exercise of military discipline also makes three

12 other presumptions. The first is obvious to the point of being banal, in

13 that it is presupposed that the individuals upon who military discipline

14 is to be exercised are highly trained soldiers.

15 Now, are you able to just elaborate on that comment forever us,

16 please?

17 A. Yes. What I'm referring to here is the idea that we have touched

18 on already, that there is something of a contract between the soldier and

19 commander, soldier and system, if you like; that it is a specific sort of

20 contract that enables and requires these specific sort of disciplinary

21 measures. That is really all I'm really getting at. That it is such a

22 unique framework of human interaction that you would not expect or

23 require to use that framework in other circumstances, such as running

24 your family or being a head of your family or running a business.

25 So it requires and presupposes that the people involved in this

1 system have all undergone this training and have entered into, by

2 whatever means, this contract.

3 Q. Okay. Then the final presumption you refer to, towards the

4 bottom of the paragraph, you say: "Again almost in a banal way, the

5 exercise of military discipline also presupposes a degree of physical

6 security from enemy attack."

7 Could you please elaborate on that remark?

8 A. Yes. All I mean by this is that beyond the most immediate level

9 where, in a way, you're really talking about an expectation off being

10 disciplined, rather than having to discipline, beyond that level, in a

11 military legal system, in the UK system it would be broadly analogous to

12 going through the magistrate level, then to crown court and appeal court,

13 and so on.

14 It is, obviously, complicated and complex, and it is not -- in

15 the normal course of events, it would not be possible to run that sort of

16 structure, either when your army is moving somewhere or deploying or

17 certainly when you are being attacked, because then you have, as I said -

18 I hope we're not being flippant - then you have other things, more

19 pressing things, on your mind.

20 Q. Yes. And if we can move now to the final topic of my questions,

21 and this is it at page 22 in the section that deals with military

22 failure; paragraph 52, failure ever military control.

23 You repeat the point you made earlier that effective military

24 control has at least six key functional areas, and you mention the six

25 areas or features that we've discussed today.

1 Then you conclude: "The absence or inadequacy of any one of

2 these six key functions would lead to failure of military control."

3 Please, can you tell me, what is the basis of you making that

4 statement?

5 A. This really follows my earlier response, that this analysis that

6 I've given is based on, you know, my life and my career and my

7 scholarship and experience of these things. I've thought very hard.

8 When I was writing, I need to say, I thought very hard how would I

9 describe a typical military control system. It would involve these

10 elements, and I'm confident in saying that this would be understood,

11 generally, in military circles.

12 Then the next question is: Well, what happens? Are any of these

13 disposal? I really can't see -- in looking at the list now, I really

14 can't see how this complicated management system could work without any

15 one of these things.

16 Q. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Cornish. I have no further questions.

17 MR. ROBSON: Your Honours, I would move to admit the report and

18 Dr. Cornish's CV into evidence. So the report is D1034 and the CV

19 is D1035.

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 MR. MUNDIS: We have no objection.

22 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

23 The report, D1034, and the CV, D1035 are admitted into evidence.

24 May they please be given an exhibit number, a joint exhibit number.

25 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, both exhibits will become 1383.

1 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

2 Mr. Mundis.

3 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

4 Cross-examination by Mr. Mundis:

5 Q. Good afternoon, Dr. Cornish.

6 A. Good afternoon, sir.

7 Q. My name is Daryl Mundis, and, along with my colleagues here, we

8 represent the Prosecution in this case.

9 I would, sir, ask you to follow, basically, the same guidelines

10 that my learned friend Mr. Robson did. We speak a similar language, I

11 wouldn't go as far as to say the same language, a similar language. We

12 need to pause between question and answer for the benefit of the

13 interpreters and the court reporter.

14 Let me go back, sir, to just a few of the items that you

15 testified about earlier today, and I'm going to start with something that

16 was discussed on pages 36 and 37 of the transcript. I'll go back to

17 refresh your memory as to exactly it was that you testified about.

18 You were asked some questions by the Presiding Judge in the

19 context of members of a unit that perhaps weren't wearing standard

20 uniforms and the relationship in that situation to military discipline.

21 Do you remember that subject, sir?

22 A. Yes, I do, yes.

23 Q. Part of what you said - and this is reflected on page 36, lines 2

24 through 9 - you said: "Otherwise, I think the senior commander would be

25 excused for thinking and for supposing that this sub- unit, in spite of

1 what was being said, was actually running according to its own means or

2 its own aspirations in some way, and the point I'm getting at is that he

3 would not feel that if this sub-unit could pass that very basic test of

4 wearing the same uniform and supporting the same insignia and so on, then

5 perhaps he might not be able to trust it in the time of conflict."

6 Do you remember that part of your answer, sir?

7 A. Yes, I do.

8 Q. Okay. Can you tell us, in this type of situation where this

9 sub-unit might not wear standard uniforms, would your answer be any

10 different, sir, if that unit were, nevertheless, being given assignments

11 and carrying out those assignments, notwithstanding the fact that they

12 weren't wearing standard uniforms?

13 A. Then, yes, I think it would. But I would imagine, then, that we

14 would be talking about some sort of alliance structure, rather than a

15 single unitary national structure or unitary command structure.

16 If I remember correctly, the discussion that you have just

17 summarized also involved at the point that an order would have been given

18 to this unit, to change its uniform or wear a different insignia or

19 whatever, and I think the question was: What would you infer from its

20 failure or refusal to do so? I think that was my response.

21 As I said, it is, of course, perfectly conceivable that there can

22 be alliance operations, but it would be known about. I was given to

23 understand that this would be -- that the scenario that we were

24 discussing was a different unit, a different sort of unit from some

25 unknown origin that, in a sense, refused to integrate itself with the

1 home command chain.

2 Q. That is a fair enough comment, sir. Let me just take that same

3 scenario, again based upon your expertise in these matters, the situation

4 where the unit is ordered to bring itself into compliance with respect to

5 uniforms, insignia, et cetera, the unit doesn't do that; nevertheless,

6 the unit is given combat taskings and assignments and carries those out,

7 notwithstanding the fact that with respect to the more mundane issue of

8 their uniforms and their non-compliance with an order to bring themselves

9 in line in that respect, they nevertheless are given combat assignment

10 and carried them out. What would your opinion in that situation be?

11 A. Then I think my opinion would be: So far, so good. If the

12 commander has given instructions to this units and it's all worked well,

13 then fine; but my point remains, and it is the point that I have been

14 trying to make. I would argue that there could not be that same level of

15 reliability, communications, dependability, and so on, that the commander

16 could except from other units. There would be certain indications,

17 certain signals that this unit is refusing to fully integrated and wear

18 the uniform or whatever, and those signals presumably mean something.

19 Q. Your opinion there, on this point, remains the same even though,

20 in terms of more important issues, such as combat assignments and

21 carrying those outside, that unit still complied?

22 A. I think, as I said earlier, in a sense, the most important aspect

23 of military activity is fighting. That's what they're all there for. So

24 if this unit is able to do what -- the job it is given and can

25 contribute, then fine. But almost the second important aspect is this

1 whole process of planning and expectation that in the future, after this

2 given operation, they could then do another one, or whatever. It could

3 work well, but it still seems to me to be something slightly apart from

4 the standard arrangement that I have been describing.

5 Q. And if those orders to engage in combat operations continued,

6 again notwithstanding the fact that members of the unit failed to comply

7 with uniform regulations, what would -- what would be your conclusion?

8 A. Then, again, it seems to be working and it is working fine, but

9 for how much longer? Is there going to become a point at which the

10 commander of this attached unit will decide on his own terms or on

11 somebody else's terms or whatever, either superior have no idea, that

12 that commander might decide that it has gone on long enough and,

13 therefore, is withdraw ing his contribution. When it works, it works

14 well, as you describe; but it might not work forever.

15 Q. Let me, then, go to another question and answer that you gave

16 earlier this morning. This is it reflected on page 31 of the transcript,

17 and my learned colleague Mr. Robson was talking to you about the need for

18 record keeping in the context of personnel matters.

19 Do you remember that subject, sir?

20 A. Yes, I do, sir.

21 Q. The question he put to you, reflected on lines 8 through 10 of

22 page 31, is the following: "Could any problems arise from a superior

23 commander if he did not have accurate information about the members of a

24 subordinate unit beneath him?"

25 Let me ask you this, Dr. Cornish: What level or degree of

1 information would the superior need to know about members of a

2 subordinate unit?

3 A. It's really more to the point that the superior officer would

4 expect his subordinate officer to have that knowledge and to be reporting

5 whatever parts of it need to be reported, because that level of knowledge

6 or that understanding of your troops is an essential intrinsic part of

7 military command.

8 So if that subordinate officer is unable to provide information

9 or doesn't want to, or whatever, then that would be an indication that

10 actually that commanding officer is not perhaps fully in command or not

11 in command in the ways that might be expected of them; and, therefore, it

12 then feeds back into this whole issue about the confidence with -- in

13 which the superior can give orders and instructions to his subordinate.

14 It would be an indicator that there would be possibly something wrong.

15 Just to finish the point, there would always be certain types of

16 detailed personnel information that would have to be going back up the

17 chain of command all the time, specifically, and most obviously, to do

18 with injuries. And if that cannot happen for some reason, then that,

19 likewise, is as bad as not able to pass on information about ammunition

20 and fuel.

21 Q. Right. Let me just ask a few follow-on questions, then. Would

22 it be an impairment on the ability of a corps commander to lead a corps

23 if he didn't know the identity of soldiers in a company or a battalion?

24 A. No. It would, though, if I may continue, be an impairment on his

25 ability as a corps commander if his division, brigade, battalion, and

1 company commanders did not know the identity. That is the point I'm

2 make.

3 Q. Absolutely, we're going, actually, sir, work our way right down

4 the chain of command to that very point. We wouldn't expect the division

5 commander to know the identity of the soldiers at the company level, now,

6 would we?

7 A. I don't think it would be necessary. I think I made a point

8 earlier that you wouldn't know a divisional commander to know how many

9 water bottles each soldier was carrying. It is not necessary, but it is

10 necessary that someone in the system does have that knowledge.

11 Q. Exactly. We could do the same exercise going down. The brigades

12 commander is not going to know the identity of the soldiers in the

13 companies; the battalion commander very well might not know the identity

14 of all the individuals in the companies. Is that correct?

15 A. I think so. There becomes a point at which it becomes more

16 humanly possible for an individual to know a certain number of people,

17 and there have been studies on this. I think you might expect, at a

18 battalion level of about, let's say, between 500 and 700 men and women,

19 actually for that commanding officer to know by name almost all of the

20 people. I think, beyond that, it becomes impossible.

21 Q. Absolutely. Certainly, you would expect the battalion commander

22 to at least be able to recognise the overwhelming majority of soldiers in

23 his battalion. Whether or not he knows their individual names, he is

24 most likely going to be in a position to where he sees them around the

25 garrison, around the barracks, he is going to recognise them as being

1 soldiers in his battalion?

2 A. I think, certainly, yes.

3 Q. And, certainly, by the time we get to the company level, the

4 company commander is going to know the identity of all soldiers in his

5 company?

6 A. I think so, yes, absolutely.

7 Q. Absolutely. I think you would have to agree with me, would you

8 not, that, certainly, the corps commander is not going to be unable to

9 function because he doesn't know the identities of the individual members

10 of the soldiers in the companies all the way down the chain of command?

11 A. I would certainly agree with you, and I would embellish the point

12 by saying, if the corps commander did know that level of detail, then

13 something would be wrong.

14 Q. Exactly.

15 A. The system would not be working as it should.

16 Q. And he would be focussing on something that a corps commander

17 should not be focussing on?

18 A. That's right, sir, yes.

19 Q. And, of course, we would expect, as you have already said, but

20 just to be clear on this, we would expect the chain of command to work in

21 that scenario, so that, for example, if the battalion commander had a

22 question about the identities of soldiers in his units, he would go to

23 the company commanders for that information?

24 A. Absolutely, yes.

25 Q. And, similarly, if for some reason the brigade commander needed a

1 list of all the soldiers in his brigade, he would go to the battalion

2 commander, who, if need be, would go to the --

3 THE INTERPRETER: Would the counsel please slow down for

4 interpretation.

5 MR. MUNDIS:

6 Q. -- company commanders --

7 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr Mundis, I realise you're not wearing your

8 earphones. The interpreters are asking that you slow down.

9 MR. MUNDIS: No problem, will do.

10 JUDGE MOLOTO: I'm not asking you to wear your earphones; I'm

11 just asking you to slow down.

12 MR. MUNDIS: I will put them on so that we do not have this

13 problem next time.

14 Q. Let me, again, say to you, sir: We would expect that if that

15 information were needed, the brigade commander could get the names, the

16 identities of the individual soldiers in his battalion by using the chain

17 of command downwards and making inquiries of the brigade commanders --

18 sorry, the brigade commander would go to the battalion commander, who if

19 need be, would go to the company commanders for that information?

20 A. Yes, I could agree. If a brigade commander, for some reason,

21 needed to know the identity of all the soldiers in platoon number 33, or

22 whatever, battalion number such-and-such, he would ask that battalion

23 commander, who would then ask the company commander, who would then ask

24 the platoon commander for that information, which would then go all the

25 way up the command chain.

1 Q. I'm going to turn now, sir, to a different topic.

2 You were asked earlier about a situation in which a unit or

3 sub-unit, or perhaps even I believe you said a small number of soldiers,

4 would be in a situation where they answered directly to a political

5 leader.

6 Do you remember that subject, sir?

7 A. Yes, I do, sir.

8 Q. And in describing that situation, or in answering a question from

9 my learned colleague Mr. Robson, you said, on page 52, lines 21

10 through 25: "As I keep saying, that would be a special arrangement that

11 everybody would understand."

12 My question to, sir, is: What do you mean when you say

13 "everybody would understand"?

14 A. If I could give two examples to explain what you mean.

15 There would be or might be circumstances in which specialist

16 forces would be used, and these are often referred to as strategic

17 forces, even a very small number of troops, special force troops; and

18 it's reason they're known as strategic troops is because they carry out

19 tasks of a very high level for which they report back to a very high

20 level; that is to say, if you are in a military system which has special

21 forces, then it would be understood that those forces would have a

22 special chain of command that would not normally go through the standard

23 chamber.

24 The other example for which you would find in a more -- the more

25 regular military hierarchy would be whereby you have troops of a certain

1 level, let's say, a battalion of engineers and, therefore, you would

2 expect that to come under a brigade. Although a battalion, it might be

3 designated divisional level troops and might receive its orders directly

4 from the division and act under the division's command. Again, that

5 would be understood as a specialist arrangement.

6 Q. Well, I'd like to return this focus on -- on the smaller unit

7 that is answering directly to a political leader. I would assume, in

8 that situation, we're going to be talking a very senior level political

9 figure who would have such a unit directly subordinated to him or her?

10 A. I'm not sure whether it would be necessarily be a certain

11 individual, but there would be a command level, a very high level command

12 organisation headquarters, in other words, that would be able to issue

13 orders of that sort, and then receive reports directly from it, without

14 going through the normal command chain because they're undertaking, as I

15 said a special strategic task of some sort.

16 Q. Perhaps my question wasn't clear, but, again, I want to focus

17 just for a couple of moments on the situation that you have described,

18 where a unit or a subunit other a very small number of soldiers answers

19 directly to a political authority. When you say "a very high level

20 command organisation headquarters," what type of headquarters are you

21 referring to?

22 A. Well, I think it could go very high. I think it's fairly common

23 knowledge in the UK, for example, that in the past, there have been

24 reports from, again, very small detachments of special forces on certain

25 operations and that those reports would go straight in the highest level

1 of government, where there would be military advice being given,

2 nevertheless it would skip, in other words, most if not all of the levels

3 of the command chain.

4 Q. When you --

5 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry. Do I understand you to say that it could

6 go to the political level, go beyond the army and go to the political

7 level?

8 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour, in some of those circumstances.

9 MR. MUNDIS:

10 Q. And in those circumstances, Dr. Cornish, when you say "those

11 reports would go straight in the highest level of government, where there

12 would be military advice being given," what are you talking about? Who

13 is giving this military advice? What are you talking about in that

14 context?

15 A. I'm talking there as what I described as the strategic level,

16 where political direction is informed by military advice and part of the

17 decision making process might be to use special forces. I'm talking,

18 really, here about a very specific part of the military structure. Part

19 of the decision might be to use special forces to either conduct a very

20 deep reconnaissance or to be, as happened in the British case, deployed

21 into northern Iraq in the early 1990s to conduct specific operations.

22 The report on success or otherwise of those operations didn't go through

23 a normal military command chain, it was actually -- in my understanding,

24 it was actually radioed straight back to London.

25 Q. And, again, sir, in this situation where this information is

1 going to the most senior political leadership of the country, that

2 political leadership is going to be informed or consulted by the most

3 senior levels of the army?

4 A. Yes. I would say that might be considered an ideal type, but

5 that is the ideal type with which I'm most familiar and with which I

6 would, I suppose, be most comfortable. There should be at that level, if

7 civil leadership is making the decision about use of armed force, then it

8 is fundamental, and at least common sense, for that decision making to be

9 informed by military expertise.

10 Q. Let me turn to another topic that was, again, raised this

11 morning, or actually just a few moments ago.

12 Sir, in response to, again, a question from the Presiding Judge,

13 you were asked about the use of booty or captured material as a form of

14 replenishment.

15 Do you remember that sir?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. In response to that question, this is reflected on page 61,

18 lines 7 through 9, you said, "It does happen and will continue to happen.

19 But I would say that in an established military system of the sort with

20 which I'm familiar, that should not happen."

21 But my point is, sir, when you say "established military system

22 of the sort with which you're familiar," what established military system

23 or systems did you have in mind?

24 A. All those where which I've either worked or taught. I could --

25 the list would include, obviously, the UK, the US, Sweden, Germany,

1 Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and, laterally, the Afghan

2 army. I also, of course, taught many more than I can actually remember,

3 I am afraid to say, during my time at staff college, including lots of

4 African military officers.

5 Q. But your experience, in effect, has been formed by your

6 professional experience and these projects and things that you have

7 undertaken with respect to predominantly Western military institutions?

8 A. Predominantly, yes.

9 Q. And I take it, sir, that your experience with these Western

10 militaries, really, is the basis much of what is in your report, and,

11 certainly, forms your viewpoint as to what is in the report?

12 A. Certainly, that is the case. Of course, if you're writing

13 document of this sort, then you should always be subjecting yourself to

14 some self-criticism. I think all along, in my work in this area, I have

15 been asking how universalisable - I apologise for that word - to what

16 extent could these principles I have been discussing be considered

17 universal.

18 On the basis of my experience, which has involved working with

19 and teaching and looking at various military systems, and not by any

20 means all of them Western or Western European, I am confident in saying

21 that the principles I have been talking about would not be alien to many

22 more armed forces than just those in Western Europe.

23 Q. You would agree with me that perhaps, or certainly with the

24 excepting of the Afghan army, all of these other armed forces that you

25 mentioned, UK, US, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland,

1 Austria, these are highly-developed and well-established military

2 systems?

3 A. Yes, they are. I have also, over the years, worked and studied

4 other, if you like, less developed and non-Western military systems,

5 ranging from revolutionary guerilla armies to organised guerilla forces.

6 And if you look hard enough, you can find - because as I keep saying, my

7 contention would be that much of this is common sense - you can find

8 parallels, you can find similar principles and codes of conduct, and so

9 on.

10 Q. I have no problem, sir, with the concept that the principles are

11 same; but, of course, lesser developed armies might not be in a same

12 position to meet those principles or to put those principles to into

13 practice?

14 A. I certainly agree, absolutely, that they would not be able to run

15 themselves at the same tempo and with the same technology as the best

16 developed armies. But the notion of unity of command, for example, would

17 be, as understood, I would contend in any military organisation as it is

18 in the US Army or British Navy or whatever else you like.

19 Q. Again, the aspirations, in terms of fulfilling those principles,

20 or fully meeting those principles, might vary over a wide spectrum

21 depending upon how well established that military force was?

22 A. Yes, I think so. I think it would. It might take longer or it

23 more complicated or more difficult. There might be different means by

24 which you can achieve the same effect, but that effect of unity and

25 command chain and common purpose and all those things I talk about, I

1 think would still obtain.

2 Q. Let's, then, take a look at this issue of logistics or supply,

3 re-supply, that you were speaking about earlier today, and which actually

4 resulted in the answer that we just been discussing.

5 Obviously, highly developed militaries have highly developed

6 logistical systems; would you agree with that?

7 A. Yes, I would.

8 Q. Can you comment, sir, on lesser well developed armed forces. Do

9 they have the same level of logistical supply and logistical systems?

10 A. They would have a similar logistical system because there might

11 not be a dependance on, for example, vehicles. There might not be so

12 many artillery guns, and, therefore, such a dependance on artillery

13 ammunition being put through. There might be a narrower requirement and

14 there might be a smaller requirement in certain areas. But somehow there

15 would have to be logistics of some sort.

16 Q. And let me ask you this because you talked about -- I think you

17 gave a couple of examples. An armed force that uses trucks might face a

18 situation where they would have to requisition fuel on the civilian

19 economy, a situation where armed forces or armies had to, in effect, live

20 off the land, in terms of own nutritional requirements.

21 What about a situation where the armed force or the army was

22 unable to procure weapons and ammunition through the logistical supply

23 chains for whatever reason, how would they do that?

24 A. Yeah, that would be -- I think you're at the point at which the

25 entire system is breaking down.

1 It would seek help from supporting units, supporting countries,

2 whatever else it could. It would have to, but this would be in the most

3 dire circumstance. If the operation is basically running out of fuel and

4 ammunition, then you might argue that it shouldn't have begun in the

5 first place.

6 Q. If that type of weaponry or ammunition was available through the

7 civilian economy, would that be a source for that army to reply itself?

8 A. Yes. I think it could be and it would certainly be considered.

9 I think the example I gave would be coming across a civilian fuel station

10 full of fuel; and if your own system was unable to provide, then it would

11 make sense to requisition that fuel.

12 Q. And the same would go for weaponry or ammunition if it was

13 available on the economy?

14 A. It gets more complicated then, because, you know, what you're

15 looking at there are weapon systems that are, in spite of the fact that

16 one run rifle looks much like the another, the calibres of the ammunition

17 can vary in minute degrees, and that can actually render the weapon

18 unusable. So there is also an issue to do with the dependability of the

19 ammunition and that's why there is a preference, a close preference, to

20 supply standard ammunition to standard weapons within one logistic

21 framework.

22 Q. But, again --

23 JUDGE MOLOTO: If I may just ask the same question, where the arm

24 and its ammunition were available from the civilian economy; in other

25 words, you didn't have to use ammunition of a different calibre on a

1 particular weapon, that the replenishment is capable of replenishing you

2 with both the arm and its ammunition.

3 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. It is not something that I confess I'm

4 familiar with. I would have to think closely about it. But I would,

5 also, I think venture the opinion that, in that those circumstances, we

6 come back to an earlier problem, whereby that force, the force in

7 question, were replenishing itself with the most vital means of military

8 activity, which is its ammunition; and, ideally, the command system ought

9 to be able to know, first of all, that it's run out, and, second, that it

10 is replenished. Otherwise, it cannot be really be considered fully part

11 of the overall system.

12 JUDGE MOLOTO: Sorry, Mr. Mundis.

13 MR. MUNDIS:

14 Q. Now, would your answer be any different, sir, in a combat

15 situation, where, for whatever reason, the army was not able to fully

16 equip and arm a unit? If that unit had recourse to the civilian economy,

17 what steps would that unit take in that situation?

18 A. Then I think, and as I understand it, I believe it's the case

19 that looting and simply stealing what you require is, I think, illegal in

20 international humanitarian law. So there would be some -- should be

21 system whereby the deprived unit would be able to, as I said, requisition

22 what it required, or bought what it required in some way, whether that

23 would be fuel or ammunition or water or food.

24 Q. Now, Dr. Cornish, we'll turn again briefly to another subject

25 that was discussed earlier this afternoon, and that has to do with

1 discipline, military discipline.

2 Can you tell us just in the most general way what role discipline

3 -- discipline plays in the armed forces and the fulfilment of military

4 missions?

5 A. Yes, I'll try.

6 I think what I have been saying is that an individual soldier

7 within a military unit has to be disciplined. They have to be

8 sufficiently well trained and of sufficient motivation and character, if

9 you like, to undertake what I've described this very counter-intuitive

10 activity of being fired at, shot at, and staying where you are, and this

11 requires, I think, would require extraordinary levels of training. There

12 is a requirement then to be disciplined, and military discipline, in my

13 understanding, my interpretation, would be motivated very largely to

14 maintain and ensure that the unit and the individuals remained

15 disciplined.

16 Q. And, in fact, would you not agree with me that maintaining good

17 order and discipline is absolutely critical in any military mission?

18 A. Yes, I would, sir.

19 Q. I'd like to now turn, sir, to some specific things that are

20 contained in your report. I believe you still have that in front of you.

21 Let's talk a little bit about leadership, military leadership,

22 which is section 1. I'd like to draw your attention to particularly the

23 writings of von Clausewitz. Paragraph 7 of your report towards the

24 bottom of page 4 sets forth and continues onto the next page a list of

25 qualities or character qualities which a good military leader should

1 have.

2 Do you see those, sir?

3 A. Yes, I do, sir.

4 Q. I'm particularly interested in point A, where you list from

5 von Clausewitz courage. In the second part of that lettered bullet

6 point, if you will, "the courage to accept responsibility, either before

7 the tribunal of some outside power or before the court of one's

8 conscience."

9 Can you elaborate on that?

10 A. I will try to. I believe what Clausewitz means by this is two

11 things; that, first of all, the leader has to be able to do what the

12 soldier does, what I've just described, be able to undertake this

13 enormous stress and danger of being in conflict. He requires that

14 soldierly courage, if I can put it that way. But he also requires a

15 separate, a different level of courage, which is the ability to make a

16 decision, often on the basis of imperfect knowledge, and it then to give

17 instructions on the basis of that judgement, and then also - and perhaps

18 more so - to change that decision when circumstances alter.

19 So it requires, I think what Clausewitz is saying, a -- a

20 extraordinarily, or a -- if you like, a normally courageous person to be

21 extraordinarily capable of taking fast complicated decisions and altering

22 them as time goes on.

23 Q. What can you say if anything about this aspect of accepting

24 responsibility in terms of being accountable. How important is that for

25 military leaders?

1 A. Accountable to what, sir?

2 Q. Let's take Clausewitz that you have cited to in paragraph 7.

3 When you have quote to him saying "courage to accept responsibility," my

4 question is responsibility for what, responsibility to whom,

5 responsibility -- what exactly -- why did you put this in your report?

6 A. Oh, I see. Well, the reason I put it in the report was to show

7 that -- I used Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and I think one or two others, was

8 to show that military strategists, military thinkers, have identified

9 there are certain special qualities required of leadership and so I gave

10 them lists of them. That's where that comes from.

11 I think the term "responsibility" in this context really refers

12 to having the strength of character to accept the appointment that you

13 are being offered or instructed to undertake. If you are being given a

14 divisional commander, clearly it makes sense that you should have the

15 confidence and the responsibility to take that on and to know what is

16 involved; and if you don't have that sense of responsibility that it is

17 something that you should and can do, then perhaps you shouldn't take on

18 the appointment in the first place. I think that is what is being got at

19 here.

20 Q. And by accepting this responsibility, is there not a requirement

21 for accountability up the chain of command and, for that matter, down the

22 chain of command?

23 A. Yes, absolutely. Yes, I would certainly agree with that.

24 Q. And leadership in this sense, as defined here, as set forth by

25 Clausewitz, this leadership, in terms the responsibility and

1 accountability, sets the tone for the entire command, does it not?

2 A. I think it does, from the bottom through the top. At every

3 level, a leader should be thinking both downwards to those commands and

4 those that they command, and upwards to those who command him. So there

5 is, as you said, sir, a sense of two-track accountability.

6 Q. Just a moment, please.

7 MR. MUNDIS:

8 Q. Thank you Dr. Cornish.

9 MR. MUNDIS: We have no further questions.

10 JUDGE MOLOTO: Mr. Robson.

11 Re-examination by Mr. Robson:

12 Q. Just one point, Dr. Cornish.

13 You were asked about a situation whereby an army does not have

14 sufficient weapons and ammunition, and you were asked whether it might be

15 the case that units may obtain or attempt to obtain ammunition and

16 weapons from a local environment, let's say.

17 Is that the way that an army should work? Should lower level

18 units be able to go off on their own and obtain their own weapons and

19 ammunition, or should it typically be done in a different manner in such

20 extreme situation?

21 A. I would say that it certainly wouldn't be -- would not be a

22 typical way of doing things. It would not be the preferred way of doing

23 things. The preferred way would be that the military system makes it

24 possible for -- let us say we're talking about an artillery battalion

25 somewhere. The system should make it possible for that artillery

1 battalion to have sufficient fuel and -- ammunition, fuel and water and

2 food to hold itself together and to redeploy itself and move around, and

3 it should then have enough ammunition to undertake the missions it's

4 given.

5 It if it doesn't have enough ammunition, then my sense is that

6 the system begins to decay, to be honest, because logistics isn't simply

7 about providing artillery shells. It's about providing a certain type of

8 artillery shell, which you, the system, can depend upon. You know that

9 this type is able to do certain things at certain ranges with that

10 certain weapon. And if the ammunition is coming from all kinds of other

11 places, then you lose that close understanding of what is possible and,

12 as I said, there might then be other possibilities that the ammunition

13 might actually not work or might prove to be dangerous because of its

14 quality. And then you -- you then end up with your weapon systems

15 grinding to a halt and becoming inoperable.

16 So it would be very, very much the last thing to consider. And,

17 again, I speak from only my limited experience, and my limited experience

18 suggests to me that it would be unlikely for certainly in the -- when

19 we're talking about high-tech advance military systems that they could

20 find the level of replenishment that they would want in a given

21 circumstance. These things, it's no -- I think I'm trying to say, it's

22 no longer simply a matter of providing cannon balls, gunpowder or musket

23 balls. It is much, much more complicated.

24 And my final point is that that whole system, whereby the unit,

25 the artillery battalion, is running out of ammunition and reports the

1 same thing up the chain of command, the chain of command is then

2 functioning or providing another useful function. In that it is

3 providing intelligence about the disposition of your own forces. This

4 battalion of artillery has used up all its ammunition. That means it

5 musts be firing it, and the reason it's firing it is because it is in

6 contact with the enemy, and therefore it needs more. And so you're

7 getting more and more information from what look as though they might be

8 simple straightforward figures of requirement. They actually tell a

9 much, much more important story, and if the supply chain is confined to

10 this -- the known logistics chain, that information can be captured. If

11 logistics is just wherever you can get it, then the information is not

12 organised and is not captured.

13 MR. ROBSON: No further questions, thank you.

14 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.

15 Judge.

16 Questioned by the Court:

17 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Today you mentioned or you spoke

18 about a kind of dialectical relationship between subordinate units and

19 higher units, especially when it comes to having a unit being -- moving

20 or being attached to another battalion. Sorry about the terminology, if

21 I'm not very precise, because I'm a woman, after all.

22 Now this issue of the dialectics, of the exchange of information

23 or suggestions that may come from the lower ranks and going up the chain

24 of command, does that apply also to combat operations, as to how, when

25 and where fighting operations take place in the field? So if there are

1 suggestions or proposals made from a lower unit, are they taken into

2 account?

3 A. Thank you, Your Honour. Yes, I think they would be.

4 I didn't use the term dialectical relationship but I think it is

5 a very good one. So thank you for that; I will take note of it.

6 Yes, I think there should be, that exchange of ideas, and I think

7 a mature well-organised and self-confident military command chain would

8 enable precisely that flow to take place. It would require certainly the

9 information that we've all been talking, ammunition and so on, but it

10 would also be sufficiently flexible, such that if a divisional commander,

11 in consultation with his brigade commanders, came up with a plan to do

12 something, and one of the brigade commanders then gave his orders to his

13 battalion commanders, and one of those battalion commanders actually came

14 up with a much better way of doing it, or because of some insight or some

15 observation he could make that nobody else could make, he would then pass

16 that to the brigade commander and the brigade commander would then say to

17 the divisional commander, Here is a new idea.

18 But in the end, after all that exchange of ideas and it is all

19 happening very rapidly, in the end there is authority and there is

20 decision and that someone somewhere, nevertheless, says Thank you for the

21 information, thank you for the ideas, it will be done the following way.

22 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] We're still on this issue. If

23 there is a unit tasked with a -- an assault unit, say, tasked with a

24 particular mission which is supposed to operate in the front line, they

25 should break the defence line of the enemy, close combat possibly, if

1 there are opinions expressed by that unit as to how, when and where

2 things should be done, is that going to be taken into account with regard

3 to the assault operation?

4 A. Yes, I think it could be. What you would expect, though, is that

5 the -- the system, the command chain, the hierarchy, should, if it is

6 working properly, it should already be taking into account what that

7 battalion is able to do, because it has all the information about what

8 the battalion has done, about its personnel, about its ammunition and so

9 on, so there should be a good level of judgment about what could be

10 expected of that battalion.

11 Nevertheless, the battalion commander sees something different,

12 and it would be absolutely essential that he makes that observation clear

13 to his commander and, if necessary, from then up to the next one. In the

14 end, though, the battalion commander, having made that observation,

15 having said perhaps, It looks to me as if I won't be able to breakthrough

16 for the following reason, nevertheless, he could conceivably be given an

17 order to go and do precisely that. That's where this authority allies,

18 and that's where this reliance so importantly on military discipline is

19 so essential.

20 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] In other words, in the last

21 instance, you cannot refuse?

22 A. Absolutely, yes.

23 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] One last thing - or maybe two -

24 you said that it would be an anathema to skip one wrung in the command

25 chain, and of course the one who -- without the person who suffered this

1 anathema would be informed of what is happening.

2 But if the person who suffered this, that is like the commander

3 that has been skipped. In a system that performs well, how would that

4 commander react? What should his or her reaction be? Can they claim

5 that they have rights? Can they demand some explanation? Can they

6 resign? In your system, I mean, it is just too perfect a system. But in

7 your British Army, how would that work all the same? How would that

8 work? What would they do in your system.

9 A. In the British system, and in many others, if there is a case for

10 removing a unit from the command chain and giving it a special task with

11 special orders so it reports around the command chain, then the commander

12 who has lost a unit would know all about it and would have no objection,

13 because it would have been done properly. He would have received an

14 order that says, One of your battalions is going to be moved over there

15 and is going to doing this and is going to be answering to somebody else

16 for three days or a week. So there's no -- no objection should arise.

17 This is -- can be part of the military function. Our commander knows

18 that and he accepts it.

19 If, nevertheless, it comes to his attention that it has been

20 happening informally, then he would certainly be rather anxious and angry

21 about what had happened. He could require an explanation of the subunit

22 - What are you doing, Why are you doing it, Who told you to do this - and

23 he could then make a representation to his commander to say, This is

24 happening. This is not acceptable, in my view, for my level of command,

25 and it is then the problem for the more senior commander to decide what

1 can be done.

2 In the end, you would expect the system to rectify the fault

3 because it is perceived as a major fault, an anathema, for this to

4 happen, but you could also conceive that the very senior commander might

5 say, It has happened, it shouldn't have happened, but it's happened so

6 let's carry on anyway. There would be procedures and exceptions for

7 representations to be made, but there would be no circumstance I can

8 conceive of in which a brigadier, a commander of a brigade, would say to

9 his divisional commander, I don't like the way things are going and I

10 resign, I'm going home, any more than a private soldier could say, I

11 don't like being fired at, and I'm going home.

12 I don't think it would arise or should arise.

13 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] One last point. Do you have any

14 experience in your army or other armies of cases where in wartime in

15 order to defend national territory, voluntary peoples are used and are

16 enrolled, volunteer units who would come also from perhaps their civilian

17 population who would enrol voluntarily.

18 A. Yes, this has happened extensively in military history in the

19 twentieth century; in other words, in more contemporary conflicts. There

20 is nothing unusual about this. In a sense, it has happened a lot, and

21 I'm sure will continue to happen, even to the point at which another very

22 important French expression is used the levee en masse. It is

23 conceivable that the civil population, either en masse or in small units

24 or packets, or even individual people, can want to help.

25 I think my point, though, would be, and I think looking back in

1 -- and this is really just no more than a quick glimpse. I think I would

2 probably expect the commander concerned to receive that help with

3 gratitude but not to rely upon it.

4 So if, let's say, you were conducting an operation in a foreign

5 country somewhere and some of the local people offered to help you with

6 organizing a small defensive position, then you might want to use them,

7 to involve them in the -- in the defence, but you would not probably rely

8 upon them for that defence. You would want to mix them up with your own

9 soldiers and troops so that you could nevertheless be sure that there

10 would be a defence there. Because, in the end, they are not the soldiers

11 that you have trained with, that you can depend upon, that you can expect

12 to act in certain ways. They're very good and brave people, but they're

13 not soldiers.

14 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] In that case, this system, which

15 is almost perfect which you've described to us will continue to function,

16 or are there exceptions, certain situations which are specific and -- as

17 far as the command and control are concerned about these voluntaries --

18 volunteers.

19 A. I think it does begin to raise all sorts of problems. Would this

20 contingent of people -- the first question would be to establish what

21 they can do, how good are they, and what is their compatibility. Do they

22 all have rifles, or do they have some other weapon. What exactly can

23 they do. Can they interoperate, can they work with other parts of your

24 unit, have they had a sufficient amount of training. Are they going to

25 be joining your organisation, or are they, as we discussed earlier, are

1 they somehow sitting alongside it for as long as they want to be there.

2 So all those difficult questions would arise, I would think.

3 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Dr. Cornish. It would be a lot easier

5 if we all lived in the perfect world.

6 I asked you at the very beginning of your testimony whether you

7 any legal background, and I did so because I could anticipate that some

8 of the questions that I would have are perhaps of a legal nature.

9 Now, if you're unable to answer some of my questions, then just

10 go ahead and tell me so, because I wouldn't want to you speculate on

11 matters that are outside your expertise.

12 The issue I wish to raise with you is issues of responsibility

13 accountability and, indeed, jurisdiction, over groups which we have been

14 circling around here for the last hour or two. I would say paramilitary

15 groups.

16 So my first question to you is: Do you have any experience or

17 knowledge about how relations are normally handled between regular army

18 troops and paramilitary troops, or units of.

19 A. That would -- I think the larger part of the question would be

20 beyond my experience. What I would say, though, is that it is

21 conceivable that this should happen but there should be a relationship

22 between, as it were, our standard perfect command chain and this

23 non-standard paramilitary organisation, unit, whatever.

24 But there would have to be special efforts put in place for

25 everybody to understand what was going on and why and how this thing

1 fitted in and what it was to do and what it was not to do and so on. So

2 you would expect in those circumstances there to have been a lot of

3 additional effort to make it clear.

4 But, again, I'm going jump into something where I am completely

5 out of my depth, which is to say that we are all, when we are deployed on

6 operational duties, we are all subject to national and international law,

7 and there would be -- a big question I would ask about exactly what would

8 be the status of that organisation, and therefore would it be right and

9 proper for you, the commander, to depend upon it.

10 JUDGE HARHOFF: What were the efforts that you mentioned were to

11 be made? What sort of efforts are we talking about, just to be clear and

12 -- so we don't misunderstand each other.

13 A. Let us suppose that our command structure is a division with

14 three brigades and each of those has three battalions, a simple army

15 structure, small army structure, and the divisional commander is informed

16 that a paramilitary organisation, which satisfies all other political and

17 legal requirements, has come along to make a contribution. He would then

18 make it very clear to his brigade commanders precisely who and what that

19 organisation was; and they, in turn, would make it very clear to their

20 subordinate battalion commanders who and what that organisation was,

21 because there has to be, as I have been saying during the morning, there

22 has to be crucially a sense of operational security. There can be no

23 confusion about the disposition of your own forces. There's lots of

24 uncertainty about the enemy and where they are, but there can be as

25 little as possible confusion about your own forces. Because the last

1 things you want to have happen is that in the end a -- a part of your

2 organisation that has been attached to your organisation but that you

3 didn't know about is moving around in front of you and you therefore

4 assume it is an enemy organisation.

5 JUDGE HARHOFF: Let me address this issue from a slightly

6 different angle.

7 Why do armies use or seek support of paramilitary units rather

8 than enrolling these units directly into the army? What is the advantage

9 really that you can have of paramilitary units?

10 A. If I might answer this question, Your Honour, on the basis of it

11 being a hypothesis. I don't know from my experience that armies with

12 which I'm familiar would do this, other than, I guess, in very, very

13 special circumstances. But I might be able to contribute something

14 usefully from military history, in that in the modern period of

15 industrialised warfare there have been circumstances in which armed

16 forces, armies, have used, if you like, paramilitary forces although they

17 wouldn't have been called that obviously in the early nineteenth century

18 or late eighteenth century, and the idea would have been that these

19 people would provide local knowledge and provide a very intimate

20 understanding of the territory and so on. And so there would be a

21 specific service that they could provide.

22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Who, if you know -- or, rather, how would the

23 regular army -- the regular army's military police handle crimes or

24 violations of international humanitarian law committed by paramilitary

25 units; do you know? Do you have any knowledge about this?

1 A. I have no direct knowledge, but I would think this would be a

2 very large-scale challenge, because the system that we're talking about

3 would have a certain capability in military police and military

4 discipline that would be predicated on their being a general disciplined

5 understanding of what to do and what not to do.

6 If, though, our attached paramilitary unit is committing

7 violations of international humanitarian law, then it would, I think, be

8 considered something more than simply military discipline in the field

9 within known parameters and might well be considered beyond the means of

10 a small military police detachment.

11 So I think, and I am speculating, I think it might be considered

12 a very large challenge.

13 JUDGE HARHOFF: Let me move on to another question that I have

14 regarding the responsibility and the accountability of the leadership.

15 That is, the flow of information of which you have already testified at

16 length.

17 I think you explained to us how information is being condensed

18 from its departure at the ground level up through the various levels of

19 command and up -- right up until the main Command Staff. Can you say

20 anything about how this condensation is made? How the selection of

21 information is made on the way up? If you have a combat report, for

22 instance, that begins -- comes from the battalion commander -- even the

23 company commander files a daily combat report an ends it up to the

24 battalion commander who then edits the report and sends the edited report

25 together with the reports that he has received from the other companies

1 up through the -- to the battalion, and the same thing happens therein.

2 What ends finally in the top looks very different from what emanated at

3 the beginning.

4 How is that edition, or the editorial work down? Are there any

5 rules that apply to this?

6 A. I don't know so much that there would be rules, but it would be

7 having a close sense of what your next level commander would require.

8 And, again, in the perfect system to which I have been referring, or I

9 prefer to say in terms of the general principles which I have been trying

10 to describe, the -- a mid-level commander would, as part of his training,

11 have been trained in not one but possibly even two levels of command

12 higher up, just in case he has to be given a higher command in time of

13 emergency. So you are trained, or you would be trained, in the sort of

14 information that the next commander would require and so on from you.

15 A low level combat report might involve the number of rounds of

16 shells of artillery that were fired and you might pass that information

17 on to your platoon and company commander and so on. But beyond that, it

18 might not be so useful to burden the command chain with that information,

19 and by the time you get to, let's say, a brigade level, it might be

20 sufficient to say that at that point this unit has taken incoming fire

21 from artillery. And so it would be consolidated and analysed, I guess,

22 as it goes on, because the commander at any level, at whatever level is

23 trying to achieve for his commander what that commander needs, which is

24 situational awareness and so is applying not only judgement about what

25 his subordinates are doing but vicariously -- vicariously is trying to

1 imagine what the commander needs of him and is providing information

2 according.

3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Dr. Cornish, I see the time is running out. I

4 have one more question, but I wish to consult with my Presiding Officer,

5 or the parties, if you have more questions to put, then I think we might

6 adjourn, but if I only -- if I am the last one to have just one question,

7 then we ...

8 [Trial Chamber confers]

9 JUDGE HARHOFF: In that case, I will postpone my question until

10 tomorrow.

11 JUDGE MOLOTO: We -- the Court will stand adjourned until

12 tomorrow morning at 9.00, same courtroom.

13 Court adjourned.

14 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,

15 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 16th day of

16 April, 2008, at 9.00 a.m.

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