Iraq war was badly planned, says Army

Sean Rayment
Daily Telegraph

A leaked internal Army report has delivered an unprecedented attack on the planning and execution of the war in Iraq.

The document, which openly condemns British and US foreign policy, says that "leaders should not start an operation without thinking through the options and implications of their plans".

The leaked document claims the faillure in Iraq is due in part to a lack of understanding of Arab culture

It claims that widespread planning failures in the post-war phase led to the peace in Iraq being lost by September 2003, within the first 100 days of the occupation.

The report, marked "restricted", adds that many senior officers now believe that the Government has developed a "bureaucratic approach to problem solving" and is "no longer capable" of running large scale military operations such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 16-page document describes how the Iraq campaign was undermined by a lack of planning, resources, funding and intelligence.

(Continued here.)