The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
173.
That view was
shared by Mr Hoon, who told the Inquiry that:
“… some of
the security difficulties, particularly in and around Baghdad were
the
result of
disaffected people, no longer receiving their salary, joining the
insurgency
and,
indeed, putting their expertise to use in the sense that there was
a clear
suggestion
to me that some of the attacks became more sophisticated as
some
[former]
military people became involved …
“… I think
that it would have been better to have that stability in that
immediate
aftermath
and I think that, to some extent, disbanding the army fuelled
the
insurgency
in a way that made it much harder to contain.”138
174.
Sir John
Sawers told the Inquiry:
“I don’t
think it is credible to lay the insurgency, the roots of the
insurgency, in the
decision to
disband the army … The decision to formally disband the army was
not
something
that inspired or triggered the insurgency. It may, in some areas,
have
compounded
it, but it wasn’t the fundamental reason behind
it.”139
175.
The Order to
disband the army also reduced the rate at which the security
forces
were later
re‑established. General Sir John Reith told the Inquiry that
if the army had not
been
disbanded “there was still some structure there we could have built
on, whereas,
as it was,
we really had to start from scratch”.140
176.
Lieutenant
General Sir John Kiszely, who became Senior British
Military
Representative
– Iraq (SBMR‑I) in October 2004, described the impact on
army
capability:
“The Iraqi
Army, of course, as a result of the Coalition Provisional
Authority’s
decision to
disband the army, had been starting from scratch in many areas. So
the
competence
of commanders was in many cases way below that which you
would
expect of
their rank.”141
177.
Lieutenant
General Sir Robert Fry, Deputy Chief of Joint Operations
from
May 2003
to July 2003, told the Inquiry that:
“… one
advantage that the Iraqi Army has had subsequently over the Iraqi
police
force is
that it was created ab initio and thus did not contain some of the
flaws that
manifested
themselves in the Iraqi police force in subsequent
years.”142
138
Public
hearing, 19 January 2010, page 161.
139
Public
hearing, 10 December 2009, page 78.
140
Private
hearing, 15 January 2010, page 61.
141
Public
hearing, 14 December 2009, page 11.
142
Public
hearing, 16 December 2009, page 76.
98