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BAHA-23

Ban Harsh Approach in Tactical Questioning

Baha Mousa Inquiry · The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · Issued 8 September 2011 · Addressed to: Ministry of Defence

Government responseMinistry of Defence: Not accepted (Sep 2011)

DeliveryMinistry of Defence says not accepted (Sep 2011)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The harsh approach should no longer have a place in tactical questioning. The MoD should forbid tactical questioners from using what is currently known as the harsh approach and this should be made clear in the tactical questioning policy and in all relevant training materials.

Baha Mousa Inquiry, The Report of the Baha Mousa Inquiry - Volume III · 8 Sep 2011 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In September 2011, Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox stated that the Ministry of Defence could not accept a blanket ban on the harsh approach in tactical questioning, though he had asked for the practice to be restricted to defined personnel in defined circumstances (Dr Liam Fox response, Sep 2011; Dr Liam Fox, Sep 2011). In December 2014, Sir Thayne Forbes, Chairman of the Al-Sweady Inquiry, reported that the department had confirmed in March 2014 that the recommendation was not adopted for operational reasons, but found that it had withdrawn the technique and replaced it with an approach entitled "Challenging Direct" (Sir Thayne Forbes, Dec 2014).

Sources

Dr Liam Fox, Sep 2011

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

The Secretary of State for Defence accepted all of the report's 73 recommendations in principle together, in one sentence of his statement to the House of Commons on 8 September 2011, with one reservation: the recommendation on tactical questioning (BAHA-23), which he said he could not accept. That sentence is not a response to any one recommendation alone, and the Ministry of Defence published no response to each recommendation. A written ministerial statement of 27 March 2014 said the Ministry of Defence had taken action to consider and address all the accepted recommendations, and said of recommendation 44 that the existing inspection regime did not require further amendment.

Government response

●Ministry of Defence · Not accepted · 8 Sep 2011

Words of: Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, statement to the House of Commons, 8 September 2011 (HC Deb vol 532 col 571), as published by the Ministry of Defence

The recommendation that we institute a blanket ban during tactical questioning on the use of certain verbal and non-physical techniques I am afraid I cannot accept. However, I share some of Sir William’s concerns and I have asked the Chief of Defence Staff to ensure that this approach is only be used by defined people in defined circumstances.

Extract from: Statement on the report into the death of Mr Baha Mousa in Iraq in 2003

Site note: The words are the Secretary of State for Defence's statement to the House of Commons of 8 September 2011 as the Ministry of Defence published it on GOV.UK, which is the page the site cites. The Official Report of the statement as delivered (HC Deb vol 532, col 571) differs slightly in wording: it reads "I can inform the House that I am accepting in principle all his recommendations with one reservation."

Delivery

●Ministry of Defence says not accepted · 8 Sep 2011

From: Statement on the report into the death of Mr Baha Mousa in Iraq in 2003, Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence

Site note: The words are the Secretary of State for Defence's statement to the House of Commons of 8 September 2011 as the Ministry of Defence published it on GOV.UK, which is the page the site cites. The Official Report of the statement as delivered (HC Deb vol 532, col 571) differs slightly in wording: it reads "I can inform the House that I am accepting in principle all his recommendations with one reservation."

What other bodies have found

In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.

●assets.publishing.service.gov.uk · 17 Dec 2014

By letter dated 31 March 2014, the MoD informed me that this recommendation had not been adopted “for operational reasons”. However, shortly before the Baha Mousa Report was published, the MoD had in fact withdrawn the harsh technique from use and replaced it with a technique entitled “Challenging Direct”. This new approach has itself been recently considered by the Court of Appeal in Hussein v SSD (supra). See paragraphs 3.373 – 3.374)

From: The Report of the Al-Sweady Inquiry, Part 5, Chapter 2: Recommendations, Sir Thayne Forbes

Site note: This is the Al-Sweady Inquiry's report (Sir Thayne Forbes, 17 December 2014), Part 5, Chapter 2, not a statement by the Ministry of Defence. The Inquiry is reporting what it decided and what the Ministry told it; it sets no delivery status for any recommendation.

Site note: This is footnote 5157 to paragraph 5.101, which names recommendation 23 as the one the Ministry of Defence decided not to implement. "This recommendation" in the footnote is recommendation 23.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.