Executive Summary
inter‑departmental co‑ordination, inadequate civilian military co‑operation and a failure to use resources coherently.
- An unstable and insecure environment made it increasingly difficult to make progress on reconstruction. Although staff and contractors developed innovative ways to deliver projects and manage risks, the constraints were never overcome. Witnesses to the Inquiry identified some successes, in particular in building the capacity of central Iraqi Government institutions and the provincial government in Basra.
- Lessons learned through successive reviews of the UK approach to post‑conflict reconstruction and stabilisation, in Iraq and elsewhere, were not applied in Iraq.
De‑Ba’athification
818. The following key findings are from Section 11.2, and relate to evidence in Section 11.1:
- Early decisions on the form of de‑Ba’athification and its implementation had a significant and lasting negative impact on Iraq.
- Limiting de‑Ba’athification to the top three tiers of the party, rather than extending it to the fourth, would have had the potential to be far less damaging to Iraq’s post‑invasion recovery and political stability.
- The UK’s ability to influence the CPA decision on the scope of the policy was limited and informal.
- The UK chose not to act on its well‑founded misgivings about handing over the implementation of de‑Ba’athification policy to the Governing Council.
Security Sector Reform
819. The following key findings are from Section 12.2, and relate to evidence in Section 12.1:
- Between 2003 and 2009, there was no coherent US/UK strategy for Security Sector Reform (SSR).
- The UK began work on SSR in Iraq without a proper understanding of what it entailed and hugely underestimated the magnitude of the task.
- The UK was unable to influence the US or engage it in a way that produced an Iraq‑wide approach.
- There was no qualitative way for the UK to measure progress. The focus on the quantity of officers trained for the Iraqi Security Forces, rather than the quality of officers, was simplistic and gave a misleading sense of comfort.
- After 2006, the UK’s determination to withdraw from Iraq meant that aspirations for the Iraqi Security Forces were lowered to what would be “good enough” for Iraq. It was never clear what that meant in practice.
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