Iraq war was badly planned, says Army

This is the British Army here. And who believes we need to be told this? Hasn't this been a given since about, more or less, the 100th day of the invasion?

For many of us, before the invasion in fact.

That said, this is heady stuff. Its about as condemning of the the British and American administrations as you're likely to hear outside a mess tent. And it contains things the public has to hear. Many will trust their soldiers more than their politicians when it comes to the truth.

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".

The leaked document claims the faillure in Iraq is due in part to a lack of understanding of Arab culture

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.

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".

Actually, the last paragraph is one of the best although just a little too milquetoast for my taste. I'm not partial to "suggests" and "may have". But the British Army seems to do subtle better than I.

Via Telegraph.