Iraq War Inquiry: US post-invasion tactics

US post-invasion tactics made Iraq situation worse, Chilcot inquiry hears

Former top diplomat says failure to stop looting in Baghdad was disastrous and that tactics exacerbated the insurgency

An Iraqi looter in Baghdad in 2003. Failure to stop looting meant 'a virus of insecurity and instability was let loose', according to Sir David Richmond. Photograph: Laurent Rebours/AP

26 January 2011 - Britain's special representative in Baghdad warned the government that US military tactics and policies in post-invasion Iraq "made the situation worse", a classified document released by the Chilcot inquiry reveals.

The document's author, Sir David Richmond, a former top diplomat, told the inquiry yesterday that the failure to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad - dismissed by Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, in his notorious phrase "stuff happens" - was "disastrous".

He told the inquiry: "It was crime and kidnapping. A virus of insecurity and instability was let loose".

He said there would have been a Sunni-led insurgency in any event. "Did we exarcerbate it? Yes we did," he said.

The inquiry released a valedictory telegram Richmond sent to London as he was about to leave his post in Baghdad in June 2004, more than a year after the invasion. In it , Richmond said: "It is hard to escape the conclusions that CPA [the Coalition Provisional Authority] policies and US military tactics made the situation worse." {continued}

US Policies 'Made Things Worse'

January 27, 2011 - A senior British diplomat warned American policies and military tactics in post-invasion Iraq "made the situation worse", a previously secret document has revealed.

Sir David Richmond told Downing Street and the Foreign Office that Britain and the US had "fallen short" of what they hoped to achieve after Saddam Hussein's removal.

The UK's former special representative in Iraq listed the growing unpopularity of the occupation, deteriorating security and the failure to tackle electricity supply problems as "the most visible signs" of the coalition's failures.

In a telegram sent on June 28, 2004 as he prepared to leave Baghdad, he highlighted Iraqis' opposition to the occupation.

"What might have been an uneasy acquiescence was too often turned into anger and resentment by military tactics which were heavy-handed and disdainful of the Iraqis," he wrote.

"The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal epitomised the problem but it went much wider." {continued}