Cross-Party Commons Committee draws lessons

The House of Commons Defence Select Committee last week published its investigations into Pre-war Planning for the Post-Combat Phase. The report does not pull punches, recognising that the insurgency should have been foreseen, that priority should have been given to developing locally validated security services and there should have been far closer working between the army and those NGOs able to support reconstruction and national building.

Headline conclusions include:

a. Until such time as the private sector is confident that the necessary security can be provided by the Iraqi Security Forces, British troops are likely to be invited by the Iraqi Government to stay in Iraq. This may be a substantial period of time.

b. In light of the state of the insurgency and the condition of the Iraqi Security Forces, and subject to the continuing agreement of the Iraqi Government, it seems likely that British forces will be present in Iraq in broadly similar numbers to the current deployment into 2006. We support this commitment and believe that calls for a withdrawal of British forces are premature. Experience has taught us that, if nation-building exercises, such as that in Iraq, are to succeed, they must have a serious commitment of time, energy, financial resources and political resolve.

c. It is difficult to avoid concluding that the Coalition, including British forces, were insufficiently prepared for the challenge represented by the insurgency. A wide range of predictions for the post-conflict situation in Iraq were made in advance of the conflict. We are concerned that there is some evidence that the extensive planning, which we know took place in both the US and the UK, did not fully reflect the extent of that range. We also believe that the Coalition should have foreseen that its presence would be resented by some Iraqis, particularly Sunni Arabs and some Shia nationalist elements, and portrayed as cultural and economic imperialism.

d. We note that the scale of the anti-Coalition, anti-Iraqi Government insurgency movements was underestimated by the Coalition.

e. In the foreseeable future, … the Iraqi Government will continue to be attacked, but the various insurgency movements have not developed into a genuine national war of liberation and are unlikely to do so in the future.

f. We are concerned at the continued influx of foreign fighters into Iraq through neighbouring countries, particularly Syria and Iran, and note that this was probably facilitated by the inadequate attention paid to border security by the Coalition immediately following the invasion. More broadly, it appears to us that the Coalition failed to appreciate the potential for an insurgency in Iraq to attract foreign fighters, both from the Middle East and further afield (e.g. Chechnya).

g. We accept that circumstances in Iraq currently call for the limited use of internment of civilians…We believe, however, that this extraordinary power needs to be reviewed regularly and should only be maintained for as long as there is a compelling operational need for it. MNF-I should, as matter of priority, assist the Iraqi Government in developing the capabilities to detain, prosecute and imprison those who are judged to present a serious threat to the country.

h. We believe that Security Sector Reform should have been given greater priority by Coalition and British forces before and immediately after the invasion in March 2003. Only belatedly, did the Coalition begin building the Iraqi Security Forces. Even then, a bottom-up, numerically-focused approach meant that the Iraqi military, security, and police did not develop in a well-coordinated manner. We are pleased to see that a more realistic approach to the build-up of the Iraqi Security Forces is now being taken with much greater emphasis on capability, effectiveness and long term sustainability.

i. Non-governmental organisations, the private sector, international organisations, all have a crucial role to play in addressing matters of governance, justice and reconciliation, and economic and social needs in Peace Support Operations.

j. We strongly urge the United Nations to expand its presence in Iraq especially in the southern governorates, and engage actively in the reconstruction effort.