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LONDON (Reuters) - British forces will likely be
needed in Iraq until at least 2006, an influential
parliamentary committee said on Thursday in a report
that pointed to a series of post-war "mistakes and
misjudgements".
The report, which accuses London and Washington of
failing to plan for the insurgency, drags the
conflict back into the headlines just weeks ahead of
an expected May election in which Iraq could prove
Prime Minister Tony Blair's Achilles heel.
Blair is on track to win, but voter anger over the
war could erode his huge parliamentary majority.
Blair has come under pressure from the public and
members of his Labour Party to set a date for the
return of British troops but he has refused to do
so, saying British soldiers will stay until Iraqi
forces are capable of managing security.
"In light of the state of the insurgency and the
condition of the Iraqi security forces ... it seems
likely that British forces will be present in Iraq
in broadly similar numbers to the current deployment
into 2006," the cross-party Defence Committee said
in its report.
Britain has the second largest contingent in Iraq
with some 8,600 troops. The United States has about
150,000 troops there.
The committee said progress in Iraq, in many
respects, had been "impressive" but it said London
and Washington had underestimated the insurgency and
neglected Iraq's borders with Syria and Iran,
facilitating an influx of foreign fighters.
"The coalition had not planned adequately to deal
with a post-conflict insurgency," the report said.
AMMUNITION FOR OPPONENTS
Its conclusions gave fresh ammunition to Blair's
opponents who say short-sightedness by London and
Washington put the lives of troops and Iraqis in
danger.
"We consistently warned the Government about the
dangerous lack of a coherent plan for post conflict
Iraq," said Conservative Party defence spokesman
Nicholas Soames.
"This serious failure clearly set the reconstruction
of Iraq back by at least a year and resulted in
further suffering for the people of Iraq," he added.
In response to the report, a spokeswoman for Blair
said troop levels were kept under constant review,
adding: "We've made it clear our troop level will
remain at the level it is until we hope the Iraqi
forces can take over."
Tens of thousands of people marched through London
last weekend, on the second anniversary of the
U.S.-led war, calling on Blair to bring the troops
home.
Italy, Ukraine, Poland and Bulgaria have all
signalled they were eager to scale down their
presence in Iraq.
The parliamentarians praised the "approach" of
British forces in southern Iraq but criticised
Britain and the United States for failing to reform
Iraq's police service and army, hampering efforts to
quell insurgents.
"The coalition's early efforts at security sector
reform -- particularly in the civil policing area --
were characterised by short-termism and indecision,"
the lawmakers concluded.
"Only belatedly did the coalition begin building the
Iraqi security forces ... Even then a bottom-up,
numerically-focused approach meant the Iraqi
military, security and police did not develop in a
well-co-ordinated manner," the report said.
Reuters
Britain tightens intelligence controls after Iraq
Wed March 23,
2005 9:47 PM GMT+05:30
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has tightened
controls on the processing of secret intelligence,
the government said on Wednesday, after Prime
Minister Tony Blair attacked Iraq partly on the
basis of what he has acknowledged was wrong
information.
Iraq's stockpiles of banned arms were the primary
Anglo-American motive for the war but no weapons of
mass destruction have been found and London has
since withdrawn two key lines of flawed pre-war
intelligence.
Since the row over Iraq, the Secret Intelligence
Service (SIS), also known as MI6, and other spy
agencies have adopted new safeguards, Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw said.
"Secret Intelligence Service has developed new
procedures, provided additional resources and
revised line management arrangements to improve
evaluation and to oversee the quality of
intelligence," Straw said in a statement to
parliament.
The statement came in response to a report by senior
civil servant Lord Butler, who said last July that
intelligence used to compile a September 2002
dossier on Iraq was "very thin".
The debacle over Iraq's weapons plunged Blair into
one of the rockiest periods of his premiership
following the suicide of government weapons
inspector David Kelly.
Kelly was the source of a contested BBC radio report
that accused the government of hyping the case for
war.
Blair's public trust and popularity ratings took a
nosedive over Iraq and the issue could erode support
for Blair in a general election expected in May,
which he looks set to win.
Butler cleared Blair of deceiving parliament and the
public over the intelligence on Iraq but identified
collective shortcomings in the gathering and
presentation of intelligence.
Straw said the procedures of the Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC), which compiled the September
dossier, had been "reviewed and tightened up" since
the Butler report.
He said further work was under way to improve the
analytical support provided to the intelligence
community.
The government has agreed to appoint a professional
head of intelligence analysis and analysts will be
better trained.
The government also plans to expand the assessments
staff -- which analyses the work of intelligence
services for ministers -- by about one third,
allowing for more rigorous checking of JIC reports.
MI6, popularly known as the home of fictional spy
James Bond, said in January it had hired a quality
control watchdog and reformed its management
following the Butler report.
Reuters
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