British military commanders acted like 'myopic dinosaurs' during Iraq war

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

British military commanders acted like "myopic dinosaurs" during the Iraq war with no plan and little understanding of the situation, Colonel Tim Collins, who delivered a key eve-of-battle speech in 2003, has said. The former army officer said his award-winning speech, in which he told troops "We go to liberate not to conquer", before the start of the conflict did not reflect an official plan and was simply his own interpretation of how the Iraq war would play out. "It was down to me to tell my men what I believed was the justification for what was to happen because, with hindsight, it is clear that there was simply no plan," he wrote today in The Daily Mirror on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the conflict. In the March 2003 speech in Kuwait, he told troops the Iraqi people would be grateful for the British intervention and that the Iraqis were their allies. He also warned against UK soldiers flying "our flags in their country". Col Collins later received an OBE for his "inspiring" delivery and a copy of his address was hung in the Oval office by then US President George W Bush. Col Collins, who was born in Belfast and served in Bosnia and Kosovo, claimed that military chiefs acted with "arrogance" over the invasion, leaving the previously "religiously and ethnically rich" country economically ravaged in a matter of months."It was just the fact that we were there and those in command wanted it done their way, even if they had no plan. We were in the way and, like a myopic dinosaur, it was all they could see," he said. British MPs were also unable to foresee the consequences of their actions with nativity "worthy of a small child", he added, calling the system "incompetent and spiteful". Col Collins, who stood as a Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Kent in 2011, was accused of war crimes during the battle but was later acquitted. The war in Iraq claimed more than 116,000 civilian lives in the space of eight years and cost the US about £530 billion, according to the Lancet. The conflict cost the lives of 179 British service personnel.