Chilcot Inquiry: humiliating scandals waiting

Chilcot inquiry: the real shocks are still to come

The Blair government's mishandling of the occupation of Iraq is a humiliating scandal waiting to be explored, says Christopher Booker.

Tony Blair is one of 12 people asked to return to the Chilcot inquiry Photo: EPA

12 December 2010 - The excitement over the recall of Tony Blair to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry for a second time centres on the question of whether he acted honestly or legally in getting us into the war in the first place. But we must recall that the second and separate issue concerning the Chilcot inquiry – although just as important – is the government’s handling of our subsequent occupation of south-eastern Iraq between 2003 and 2008.

Even today most people do not realise just how grotesquely mishandled was our occupation, beginning with Mr Blair’s post-invasion decision to reduce our forces from 42,000 to an absurdly inadequate 9,000. Our hopeless misjudgment of the strength of the resistance forces around Basra led by Moqtada al-Sadr led to five years of humiliating reverses, such as our defeat at Al-Amarah in 2006 and our forced retreat from Basra in 2007, culminating in the ultimate humiliation in 2008 of our forces being ordered by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to leave his country. The Ministry of Defence’s only real success was the extent to which it managed to conceal so much of this terrible story from the British people. {continued}