‘Blair’s Iraq war delay caused kit chaos’

LONDON: Britain’s top military commander admitted on Monday that soldiers in Iraq were left without life-saving body armour and even proper boots and clothing because former prime minister Tony Blair delayed authorising the war plans. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup told the Iraq Inquiry the armed forces had been under-funded in the years leading up to the invasion, which led to shortages of equipment. The British Ministry of Defence told Downing Street that the military needed six months to prepare for the war but the prime minister only gave four months notice, he said. The comments about the shortage of funding for the military will increase pressure on Gordon Brown, who was chancellor at the time of the invasion. The prime minister will give evidence to the inquiry later this month or early March. Sir Jock, the chief of the defence staff, said the military had warned ministers about the risk of delaying orders to manufacturers of vital equipment required for the invasion in March 2003. “We made absolutely clear to ministers that if we could not engage with industry – and that was the critical element – we could take things no further and that was a serious risk that they would not be delivered by the assumed start of the operation,” he said. Also on Monday, the US ambassador to Baghdad said the original process used to erase the influence of people linked to Saddam Hussein was misguided and has cast a shadow over Iraq’s March 7 general election. Christopher Hill told AFP in an interview that de-Baathification, which saw tens of thousands of Saddam-era employees sacked and forbidden from re-entering politics and public life after the American-led invasion in 2003, was flawed. afp/the times

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