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Iraq war was badly planned,
says Army
Sean Rayment
London
Telegraph
Sunday November 4, 2007
A leaked internal Army report has delivered an unprecedented
attack on the planning and execution of the war in Iraq.
The document, which openly condemns British and US foreign policy,
says that "leaders should not start an operation without
thinking through the options and implications of their plans".
It claims that widespread planning failures in the post-war phase
led to the peace in Iraq being lost by September 2003, within
the first 100 days of the occupation.
The report, marked "restricted", adds that many senior
officers now believe that the Government has developed a "bureaucratic
approach to problem solving" and is "no longer capable"
of running large scale military operations such as the conflicts
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Article continues below)
The 16-page document describes how the Iraq campaign was undermined
by a lack of planning, resources, funding and intelligence.
"The evidence shows that too little planning was done for
Operation Telic [the codename for the war in Iraq] particularly
on the non-military side, and that too few resources, both human
and financial were allocated to the post-war situation,"
it says.
The report, drawn up in late 2006, suggests that Britain and
the US may have breeched the Geneva Convention by failing properly
to conduct their duties as "occupying powers".
It also says that assessments by British commanders on the success
of their reconstruction efforts were "hopelessly optimistic".
The secrecy surrounding the operation, the report claims, meant
that government departments were unable to plan for the post-war
phase until December 2002 - just three months before the start
of the invasion.
The report, entitled An Analysis of Operation Telic, makes no
apology for the stark criticisms contained within it nor for the
embarrassment it will cause the Government.
Instead, the document, which is part of a wider study called
Theme Zero, says that the "Army has a duty to learn from
experience". The report states:
• The British headquarters suffered from a lack of good
quality officers
• Lack of planning put Britain and the US, as occupying
powers, in "breach" of the Geneva Convention
• Lack of planning resulted in delays before essential
reconstruction could begin
• Not enough funding was requested by senior commanders
or approved by the Treasury
• British commanders were forced to work to an ideologically
driven US timetable
• Restrictive operational security meant that few people
in Government were involved in planning.
The report also says that the main focus of US commanders was
the stabilisation of Baghdad and that they were "unresponsive"
to the concerns of their British counter-parts for the worsening
situation in southern Iraq.
One officer wrote that the Britain was committed to an ideologically
driven US timetable, adding: "The train was on Grand Central
station, and was leaving at a time which we did not control."
The report says "the multinational headquarters suffered
from a lack of good quality British officers with formal staff
training", a situation which persisted until the military
secretary, who advises the secretary of state for defence, intervened
to ensure that officers of the correct calibre- were posted to
Iraq.
Crucially, the document claims that the British were unable to
win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqis because they
failed to understand Arab culture. One officer wrote: "We
may be able to influence their minds but we will never win the
(Islamic) heart.
"The Army must do more to gain tolerance and depart (from
the country) before intolerance sets in." On attempts by
the coalition to stabilise the country after the fall of Saddam,
it said: "Stability operations take years to complete but
the achievements of the first few weeks are critical. Lack of
Phase IV [post-war] planning meant that coalition forces were
ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first
hundred days."
The report also states that the failure to remove large amounts
of Iraqi army ammunition supplies aided the insurgents in the
creation of lethal improvised explosive devices which killed more
than 300 coalition troops.
One officer who contributed to the report said: "We couldn't
begin planning until it was almost too late, we just didn't have
enough time so we went to war on untested plans."
Liam Fox, the Tory defence spokesman, said: "The fact that
too few resources and too little time was made available for the
post-war phase of the Iraq invasion has undoubtedly cost both
military and civilian lives and allowed the insurgents a breathing
space, which has made the whole long-term outlook for Iraq much
more uncertain."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: "We don't
comment on leaked documents."
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