The British In Iraq (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

Ret'd Brigadier Ben Barry, now @ IISS, has finally been able to publish his report; which was classified by the MoD and cited in the Chilcot Report. Less than 1% was still redacted. Just why it was not published before now eludes me, alas it is typically British.

The aim was to analyse the land tactical lessons from the Iraq campaign from 2005–2009. In the event, the report's analysis had to go back to the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, as the actions of the US-led coalition between then and 2005 set the conditions for subsequent events.
It was based on a year's work, which included analysis of all Army post-operation reports, hundreds of interviews and a two-day conference of a hundred senior officers. Its draft was reviewed by a reference group comprised of a dozen serving and retired British general officers with Iraq experience.

There is an 18 pg Executive Summary and three PDFs for the other 240 pgs on this link:http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices...lassified-953d

There is a hour long podcast too:https://www.iiss.org/en/events/event...q-inquiry-dd6c

You will hear stress that the US military learnt quicker, often helped from "bottom up" and the part of blogs too.

He noted that neither the RAF or RN & Royal Marines had conducted a similar exercise.

Finally he commended this book 'Operation Telic: The British Campaign in Iraq 2003-2009' by Tim Ripley, a journalist, published in November 2014:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-T...lic+tim+ripley

Or for US$20:https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Tel...ct_top?ie=UTF8