Invasion of Iraq 2003: A Hideous Mistake

"SIR MARTIN GILBERT: Was it then a weakness in the pre-March 2003 discussions that somehow voices weren't raised, and experts and knowledge weren't put on the table that there could be this massive deterioration [in the security situation in Iraq post-invasion] ?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: There was very much discussion of the Shia/Sunni issue, and we were very well aware of that. What there wasn't -- and this, again, is of vital importance and this certainly is a lesson in any situation similar to this -- people did not believe that you would have Al-Qaeda coming in from outside and people did not believe that you would end up in a situation where Iran, once, as it were, the threat of Saddam was removed from them, would then try to deliberately destabilise the country, but that's what they did, and there are some very important lessons in that ... "

- Tony Blair giving evidence at The Chilcot Enquiry, 29th January 2010, p.194 (http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100129.aspx)



"I mean the truth is what got really difficult, far more difficult than anyone imagined, was when you got external factors joining up with internal factors to try and cause chaos and instability; by use of terrorism, by suicide bombers, by, you know, roadside bombs ..."

- Tony Blair, referring to both Iraq & Afghanistan, interview for The Times, 9th September 2011, by Philip Webster & Richard Beeston (http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/ten-years-after-9-11-the-battle-is-for-an-open-world-not-a-closed-one/)


How governments are run, whether in theory (the constitution) or practice (the given particular administration) may seem a tiresome detail of interest only to political nerds and policy wonks. But in fact it is vital because how decisions are made crucially shapes what decisions are made, and those decisions often have very wide consequences. The decision by the US and UK Governments , with support from only Australia and Poland, to invade Iraq in 2003 is a perfect illustration of this point.

In the events running up to the invasion of Iraq, one critical similarity between Tony Blair's government and the Bush Administration is that they were both run by tight cabals who were contemptuous of disagreement within their own wider governments. This was a key structural feature, in fact a weakness, in both governments which first made the decision to invade possible, and second for it to happen without any adequate plans for the aftermath. Dissent was marginalised; caveats and those raising them excluded. Furthermore, Blair's cabal was contemptuous of public opinion in Britain, which was generally at best puzzled by the need for or at worst actively hostile to the invasion. The Bush cabal meanwhile were contemptuous of international opinion.

Invading Iraq at all was a dumb decision. But the error was compounded a thousandfold by the incredible incompetence of how it was carried out, particularly the complete failure to plan properly or at all for what would happen once Saddam's forces had been defeated. Their planning did not go beyond 'We'll go in there with overwhelming force, we'll knock Saddam over, then everything will be alright.'

Tony Blair's contention, made in his evidence to the Chilcot Enquiry in 2010, that: a) everything would have been alright but for the interference of Al-Qaeda and more especially Iran; and b) that interference could not have been foreseen, are both ludicrous coming from an intelligent man. Such feeble reasoning merely highlights how indefensible the invasion was. I found it staggering in 2010, and do so now reading over it again, that Tony Blair was not ashamed publicly to reveal such a flawed and limitted understanding of the country he was proposing to invade, and of the dynamics of the region. He was the Prime Mininster of the United Kingdom. He cannot have lacked for experts. One can only presume he was not listening to them.No one knows or will ever know the number of Iraqis who have died in the internal conflicts since the invasion of 2003. Estimates, which is all there are, vary greatly. You can see some for yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War. It is reasonable to say it is more than 100,000 people. The fact that we don't know is a kind of extra injury to the people of Iraq, and emphasises our recklessness in that country.


"I also think however that in the action in Libya we're able to learn from the experiences particularly in nation building in Afghanistan & Iraq, but we've also got to hope by the way that in Libya you don't get the same external forces as you got in Iraq particularly, and in Afghanistan, destabilising the situation. Now personally I'm pretty optimistic about that, I think there's every chance Libya will get on its feet, and that would be great ..."

- Tony Blair, 'The 9/11 Interview', with Jon Sopel, BBCNews, 10th September, 2011 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14864513)

There is a constant implication in Tony Blair's remarks about the invasion of Iraq that I find infuriating. It is that the invasion itself took place in a kind of historical vacuum, in which none of what eventually happened could have been foreseen. In essence, saying that there had never been such a thing as a counter-insurgency campaign before and therefore there were no precedents or experience to help the invaders anticipate what might happen, they had to start from scratch. This is so obviously wrong that it is insulting, somewhat like Gordon Brown's claim that the banking disaster and credit crunch of 2007-8 came from nowhere and could not have been predicted. You have to have effectively no knowledge in order to believe either.

Here are a very few major counter-insurgencies that were available to serve as potential models, and provide warning of pitfalls:

British:

1. Malayan Emergency 1948-60

2. Aden Emergency 1963-67

3. Mau Mau Rebellion (Kenya) 1952-60, though this was a brutal & disgraceful campaign on our part.

4. EOKA in Cyprus 1955-9

French:

1. Indochina 1946-54

2. Algeria 1954-62

That's just for 2 countries fighting them in only a 20 year period and post-WWII. I'm labouring the point. There are innumerable examples. A two minute search on Google using the term 'Counter-insurgency' will start you off and direct you to all you need to know.