Former British cabinet official blames military for chaos in Iraq

Financial Times:

Military chiefs were to blame for the failure of the UK and US to carry out a swift and effective reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion of 2003, Clare Short, the former international development secretary, said on Tuesday.

Ms Short, who resigned eight weeks after the war began, said Tony Blair, the former primer minister, had been warned just before the war began that there could be a “possible humanitarian crisis” unless the invasion was delayed.

“You should be aware that the US and the international humanitarian community are not properly prepared to deal with the immediate humanitarian concerns,” she wrote in a letter to the then prime minister in March 2003.’’ …

Any suggestion that there could be chaos and sectarian fighting after the invasion was ignored by the two governments, which “believed their own propaganda”.

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