Chilcot report: Bush repeatedly dismissed UK advice on postwar Iraq

The Bush administration repeatedly overrode advice from the UK on how to oversee Iraq after the invasion, including the involvement of the United Nations, the control of Iraqi oil money and the extent to which better security should be put at the heart of the military operation, the Chilcot inquiry concludes.

It finds the UK was given no role in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the chief body based in Baghdad for the oversight of postwar reconstruction.

The inquiry specifically criticises the way in which the US dismantled the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein army and describes the whole invasion as a strategic failure.

It finds the US refused a UK request to sign a memorandum of understanding to establish how to conduct the occupation since the US had little incentive to give the UK an influential role as it had supplied the overwhelming majority of manpower and resources.

Tony Blair largely failed to change the approach of the US government on the conduct of the war in Iraq or its approach to the wider Middle East, save for persuading president George W Bush to go to the UN security council in the autumn of 2002.

Damning assessment
In a damning assessment of the imbalance in the US-UK diplomatic relationship, the Chilcot inquiry finds that: "Blair did not press President Bush for definitive assurances about US post-conflict plans or set out clearly to him the strategic risk in underestimating the post-conflict challenge and failing adequately to prepare for the task."

The UK took “false comfort” in the strength of the relationship between the president and Blair, but on a succession of issues found itself ignored, or failing to make demands in a specific enough way.

The inquiry also rejects the view that the UK would have paid an unacceptable price in loss of diplomatic influence if it had refused to join the war.

The report suggests: “If the UK had refused to join the US in the war it would not have led to a fundamental or lasting change in the UK’s relationship with the US.”

It adds: “A decision not to oppose does not have to be translated into unqualified support.”

It points out that: “The opposition of France and Germany to the war in Iraq does not appear to have had a lasting impact on the relationships of those countries with the US despite the bitterness at the time.

“Throughout the second world war period, and notably during the wartime alliance, the UK relationship with the US and the commonality of interests therein have proved strong enough to bear the weight of different approaches to international problems and not infrequent disagreements.”

It suggests if the UK had stood by its support for the war only on certain specific conditions “the inquiry does not consider this would have led to a lasting change in the UK’s relationship with the US”.

But the inquiry adds this is a matter of judgment and one on which Blair, bearing the responsibility of leadership, took a different view.

Personal contact rather than negotiation
It finds that Blair believed the best way for the UK to influence the US was through frequent personal contact with Bush, and provision of advice, rather than setting specific negotiating conditions.

It says: “Blair was right to weigh the possible consequences for the wider alliance with the US very carefully,” but finds that although a “policy of direct opposition to the US would have done serious short-term damage to the relationship, it is “questionable whether it would have broken the partnership”.

It points out that the UK has frequently differed from the US in the past on issues ranging from Suez, the Vietnam war, the Falklands, Granada, Bosnia, the Arab/Israeli dispute and at times Northern Ireland.

It finds the UK in the war “tried to establish some governance principles in the postwar planning and reconstruction, but did not press the point. This led the UK into the uncomfortable and unsatisfactory situation of accepting shared responsibility without the ability to make a formal input into the process of decision-making.”

It also suggests “a military timetable should not be allowed to dictate a diplomatic timetable. If a strategy of coercive diplomacy is being pursued forces should be deployed in such a way that the threat of action can be increased or decreased according to the diplomatic situation and the policy can be sustained for as long a possible.”

It says: “If certain measures are identified as a prerequisite for success then their importance should be underlined from the start. There are no prizes for sharing failure. Those measures that are most important should be pursued persistently and consistently.

“Influence should not be set as an objective in itself. The exercise of influence is a means to an end.”

Lessons learned
In a section on lessons learned, the inquiry states: "Where the UK is the junior partner and is unable during the planning or implementation to secure the outcome it requires it should take stock of whether to attach conditions to continued participation and whether further involvement would be consistent with the UK's strategic interests.

“Public statements on the extent of the UK’s ambition should reflect a realistic assessment of what is achievable.”

The report finds UK influence on US planning for the war was reduced since “there is no evidence that any department or individual assumed ownership or was assigned responsibility for analysis and mitigation”.

The UK had little influence over the degree to which the UN were involved in postwar reconstruction, yet at “no stage did the UK government formally consider other options apart from joining the invasion”. The CPA had no reporting line to the UK.

In the absence of decision-making arrangements in which the UK had a formal role, it says “too much reliance was placed on communication between Mr Blair and President Bush, one of the very small numbers of ways of influencing US policy”.

Although Blair was successful in urging caution in relation to the US operation in Falluja the report states “the channel of communication between the prime minister and the president should have been reserved for the most strategic and intractable decisions. It is not the right mechanism for day-to-day policy-making or an effective way of making tactical decisions.”

It says “dissolution was a key decision which was to have a significant effect on the alienation of the Sunni community and the development of the insurgency in Iraq, and the terms and timing of this important order should have been approved by both Washington and London.”

No plan to deal with tensions
Following the extensive de-Baathification of the public sector, the report says the coalition did not have a plan to deal with the tensions which rose as a result.

It says the US was wrong to insist that four tiers should be ejected from the public sector since this raised the number of disenfranchised Sunnis to 30,000, so depriving Iraq institutions of much-needed capacity.

“It made the task of reconstructing Iraq more difficult both by reducing the pool of Iraqi adminstrators and by adding to the pool of the unemployed and disaffected, which in turn fed insurgent activity.”

The US failed to tell the UK it was creating an Iraqi central bank as an independent body in July 2003.

It also failed to give the UK adequate notice of the CPA’s two main strategic documents, Vision for Iraq and Achieving the Vision. The UK ambassador was informed of the two documents less than 12 days before they were signed off by the Pentagon.

It finds right up until the handover of power back to Iraq, Blair and Bush continued to discuss Iraq on a regular basis with relatively small issues raised to this level. “The UK took false comfort that it was involved in US decision-making from the strength of that relationship.”

Blair, in previously unpublished evidence to the inquiry, submitted in January 2011 Britain had to take a frank and considered view of its relationship with the US.

“For my part, I believe our relationship with the US is an essential part of our security, that we share values and a commitment to a particular way of life and that, however challenging, it would have been wrong to have been anything other than shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in the years following 9/11. The test of such a relationship is not found, the tensile strength of its bonds are not forged, in times of comfort, but the times of challenge.

“The UK needs to be honest and not fool ourselves that the gain comes pain-free.”

The Guardian