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UK 'warned of US mess'
14/03/2006 12:32 - (SA)
London - Top British officials warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United States plan for postwar Iraq was a mess and outlined major blunders made once the coalition took control, revealed leaked memos on Tuesday.
According to reports, John Sawers, Blair's envoy in Baghdad immediately after the March 2003 invasion, sent a series of confidential messages to London in May and June of that year.
Michael Gordon co-wrote Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq with General Bernard Trainor. Extracts of the book had also been published in the newspaper.
In the memos, Sawers reportedly described the US postwar administration in Iraq, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess".
Blair's key advisors
He said: "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well meaning, but out of their depth".
On May 11 2003, just four days after arriving in Baghdad, the British diplomat sent a damning memo to Blair's key advisors titled: "Iraq: What's Going Wrong".
He wrote: "No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis."
Sawers, who was now political director at the foreign office, said urgent action was needed by the US, noting: "The clock is ticking."
US-led coalition
Major general Albert Whitely, the most senior British officer with the US land forces, reinforced the grim message in a separate note weeks later that suggested the US-led coalition was in danger of failure.
He said: "We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret. Is strategic failure a possibility? The answer has to be 'yes'."
Sawers and Whitely said a decision by Washington to cut troops after the invasion was one of the biggest blunders of the occupation.
In addition, Sawers criticised the US Third Infantry Division, which he described as "a big part of the problem" in Baghdad, accusing its soldiers of staying in their armoured cars when on patrol.
Coalition Provisional Authority
He recalled an incident after British troops saw them fire three tank rounds into a building in response to relatively harmless rifle fire.
Sawers welcomed the arrival of Paul Bremer to replace Garner as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, but by late June he still concluded that the situation in Iraq was worsening.
At the same time, Sawers and Whitely continued to believe Bremer would turn things around. Whitely was less flattering about Garner whom he accused of showing little interest in the postwar period known as Phase IV.
The British general assessed that this period didn't work well because too much focus had been put on the invasion.
He wrote: "There was a blind faith that Phase IV would work. There was a failure to anticipate the extent of the backlash or mood of Iraqi society."
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