All faith and no planning - the British verdict on US postwar strategy in Iraq
"We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret," Gen Whitley wrote after consulting some of his fellow British officers. The senior British officer in the allied land war command, Gen Whitley had been heavily involved in plans for Phase IV: the military's jargon for the postwar stage that was to lead to the birth of a new Iraq. Events, however, were not following the Bush administration's script. Much of Baghdad was lawless. Basic services were wanting. An insurgency was brewing.
During the long, hot summer of 2003, British officials delivered a number of trenchant - and confidential - assessments of the coalition's accumulating woes. The target of the criticism was the hope-filled, but naive, assumption of the Bush policy team that the occupation of Iraq would be the easiest part of the invasion. Criticism was also directed at General Tommy R Franks, as well as civilian American officials dispatched to oversee the occupation.
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