Friday, Mar 25, 2005
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By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, MARCH 24. The British and U.S. Governments have come in for strong criticism from a high-level parliamentary committee for failing to anticipate the Iraqi backlash against the invasion of their country. In a report, the Defence Committee of the House of Commons questioned the U.S.-led coalition's smug assumption that the invading forces would be "welcomed'' by Iraqis despite warnings about the likely post-war situation. It pointed out that the coalition forces should have expected resistance, especially from Sunni Arabs and sections of Shia nationalists. On the contrary, they assumed that "ordinary Iraqis would welcome liberation from dictatorship, and they [the coalition] seemingly overestimated the ease of transition from war to post-conflict rehabilitation.'' Criticising the coalition's failure to prepare for post-war resistance, the report said: "It is difficult to avoid concluding that the coalition, including British forces, were insufficiently prepared for the challenge represented by insurgency.''
Misjudgments
It held the coalition policy-makers guilty of a series of misjudgments, including a failure to visualise that many Iraqis were likely to exploit the power vacuum following the removal of the Saddam regime. In a memorandum to the committee, the Ministry of Defence admitted that "an insurgency on the scale that subsequently developed was not foreseen before the end of major combat operations.'' The report came as the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, faced calls in the Commons to publish the full advice of the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith.
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