The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1352.
Witnesses
identified a number of lessons, including the need to:
•
assume the
worst;
•
understand
the underlying nature of the society;
•
seek
maximum legitimacy and maximum support; and
•
identify
the resources needed.
1353.
In his
additional statement to the Inquiry on planning lessons
learned,
Mr Blair wrote:
“Where
military action is to remove the regime of a corrupted and brutal
state,
assume the
worst about its capacity, its governing infrastructure and the
integrity
of its
Government systems. There will be nation-building and governance
capacity
required to
be established over a significant time period …
“… the
challenge confronting any nation when a powerful, all encompassing
grip
is taken
away, is formidable. There are powerful, interacting religious and
tribal
elements
and influences. These are hard to manage. Everything we take for
granted
in our
countries in government, public services, institutions and even
private sector
has to be
built or at a minimum, substantially reformed. We simply do not
have the
international
capacity to do this. It needs to be grown …
“The
planning for any aftermath should go deep into an analysis not only
of
government
and governing structures and the readily available information and
data,
but into
the underlying nature of the society, the impact particularly of
the regime’s
brutality
and corruption on the social and business capital of the country
and any
cross
currents to do with religious, tribal or other affiliation, as they
have been
affected by
the regime …
“The number
and nature of forces required for the aftermath of regime change
may
be
radically different from those required for the removal of the
regime, in scale,
in type of
training, in force posture and deployment. These really are
genuinely
separate
missions and should be treated as such …”587
1354.
Asked whether
more effort should have been put into planning for
different
post‑conflict
scenarios, Sir Peter Ricketts told the Inquiry:
“It is
always possible to say that one could do more. I think we needed a
plan that
was
sufficiently flexible to respond to any scenario that arose after
the conflict.”588
1355.
Mr Chaplin
told the Inquiry:
“… the main
lesson learned was you have to have a strategy and have a
proper
plan. You
do a lot more preparatory work than was done in this case … and
crucial
587
Statement,
[undated], ‘The Planning Lessons Learned’, pages 1-6.
588
Public
hearing, 1 December 2009, page 95.
550