RandomGuy
07-14-2016, 12:30 PM
British did their definitive analysis of Iraq and its aftermath. It paints a very unflattering picture, both of British, and American operations and decisions in the run up and aftermath of the invasion.
THERE has been no shortage of reports and inquiries into the Iraq war, which broke out in 2003. But after nearly seven years of toil, Sir John Chilcot and his fellow commissioners have published what future historians will regard as the definitive account of what happened and why. The lessons the Iraq Inquiry draws from 2.6m words of painstakingly accumulated evidence have almost as much relevance to American policymakers as they do to their British counterparts. The picture it paints, for all the familiarity of its main elements, is a devastating one of individual and institutional failure. The verdict on Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister at the time, is not that he is a liar and a war criminal (as many contend), but a man steered by a fatal combination of hubris, wishful thinking and moral fervour into an ultimately disastrous course of action.
...
The assumption was that America would draw up the plan and that the UN would have a big post-conflict role, bringing in other countries to share the burden of peacekeeping and reconstruction. Even in the face of strong resistance from Washington to the idea of the UN taking over (matched only by the UN’s disinclination to do so), the British government sat on its hands, reluctant to contemplate the warning from officials that it could soon find itself “drawn into a huge commitment of UK resources for a highly complex task of administration and law and order for an uncertain period”.
...
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21701749-official-inquiry-war-delivers-scathing-verdict-its-planning-execution-and
Stupid to have gone in, poorly executed, and ultimately shameful.
Yet so many Republicans, stuck to "their guy" in the White House even after it was plain that the aftermath was being handled in an almost criminally negligent fashion that got our soldiers directly killed.
THERE has been no shortage of reports and inquiries into the Iraq war, which broke out in 2003. But after nearly seven years of toil, Sir John Chilcot and his fellow commissioners have published what future historians will regard as the definitive account of what happened and why. The lessons the Iraq Inquiry draws from 2.6m words of painstakingly accumulated evidence have almost as much relevance to American policymakers as they do to their British counterparts. The picture it paints, for all the familiarity of its main elements, is a devastating one of individual and institutional failure. The verdict on Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister at the time, is not that he is a liar and a war criminal (as many contend), but a man steered by a fatal combination of hubris, wishful thinking and moral fervour into an ultimately disastrous course of action.
...
The assumption was that America would draw up the plan and that the UN would have a big post-conflict role, bringing in other countries to share the burden of peacekeeping and reconstruction. Even in the face of strong resistance from Washington to the idea of the UN taking over (matched only by the UN’s disinclination to do so), the British government sat on its hands, reluctant to contemplate the warning from officials that it could soon find itself “drawn into a huge commitment of UK resources for a highly complex task of administration and law and order for an uncertain period”.
...
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21701749-official-inquiry-war-delivers-scathing-verdict-its-planning-execution-and
Stupid to have gone in, poorly executed, and ultimately shameful.
Yet so many Republicans, stuck to "their guy" in the White House even after it was plain that the aftermath was being handled in an almost criminally negligent fashion that got our soldiers directly killed.