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Ministers 'failed to get grip on Iraq problems'
The British Government came under fire yesterday for failing to get to grips with the reconstruction challenges in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Strategic plans did not prepare sufficiently for the "kaleidoscope" of problems in the country as it emerged from the Saddam Hussein regime, and it was a struggle to restore infrastructure and security, the official inquiry into the war heard.
Troops attempted to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people in the midst of a "growing insurgency" and uncertainty about how and when power would be transferred to the population.
British military responsibility was focused on the southern city of Basra following the occupation.
Senior civil servant Sir Hilary Synnott said by the time he arrived as regional commander of the Coalition Provisional Authority in July 2003 he had been warned the situation was bleak.
"Once I got there this was very much confirmed," he said.
He discovered there were no phones and no computer so he ended up sending daily reports to the Foreign Office on a machine provided by the Americans via the Yahoo Internet site.
He told the inquiry: "That was an indication of the sort of problems we faced."
The inquiry earlier heard military staff were unprepared to run Iraq after the invasion but Sir Hilary said it was to be expected that UK forces as an occupying force would have a "high degree" of civilian authority.
But he had to balance former Prime Minister Tony Blair's wish for the south to be a "good example" and to publicise any success the authority had there with Britain's dependency on the US for financial resources.
Sir Hilary said he felt he had the backing of Mr Blair for his efforts but criticised the Whitehall machinery for falling short on delivery.
After requesting 37 additional expert staff and 20 armoured vehicles in August 2003, the record of the ad hoc ministerial committee stated he should be provided with everything he thought was necessary – guidance which he understood to have come from 10 Downing Street.
By January 2004, 18 staff had arrived, he said.
"I felt I was getting political support in principle," he said.
"The difficulty was that political support was not followed up at political level as well as at administrative level to turn it into reality."
The system was undermined because Whitehall "was not mobilised" on a "war footing", according to Sir Hilary.
A senior Cabinet level Minister should have had responsibility to "make things happen", working with a permanent under secretary, he told the inquiry.
Civilians, including Ministers, should be trained at a strategic level to ensure the situation was not repeated in the future, according to an Army officer who also gave evidence .
Lt Gen Sir Frederick Viggers, the senior British military representative in Iraq from May to September 2003, said the "lack of a sense of direction from the outset" put officials on the "back foot".
The lessons learned could apply to Afghanistan, he told the inquiry.
"We have not really progressed at the strategic level," he said. "I am not talking about the soldiers and commanders and civilians...who did a great job.
"But the intellectual horsepower that drives these things needs better co-ordination."
Of the need for training about how to make decisions to reconstruct an occupied country, he said: "We are putting amateurs into really important positions and people are getting killed as a result of some of these decisions.
"It's a huge responsibility and I just don't sense we are living up to it."
The speed of the military operation which led to the occupation in 2003 took planners by surprise, according to Lt Gen Viggers, and reconstruction efforts were hampered by a growing insurgency, security issues, economic, governance and power supply problems.
He said: "It was rather like going to the theatre and seeing one sort of play and realising you were watching a tragedy as the curtains came back.
"We suffered from a lack of any real understanding of the state of that country post-invasion."
Not enough research had been carried out, he said, and the reality was a "long way" from the expectation that it would be a humanitarian crisis with a population willing to help.
Lt Gen Viggers told the inquiry it took 16 days for troops to enter Baghdad from the start line, compared with the estimated 100 days.
"That was a stunning military operation but in so doing it took everyone by surprise," he said.
After being met initially with a "hugely celebratory population", the tide quickly turned against the occupying forces, the inquiry heard.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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