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 djones520 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
The problem with Iraq is that there's essentially a single port in the entire country, meaning that most of our naval/amphibious transport assets can't be utilised for a landing. We've never had the sort of airlift capacity America has.

On top of that, most of the gear our troops had was adapted for the complete opposite climate, which didn't help.

For the initial run up, we weren't exactly using Basra to off load our equipment. We were using port facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, etc...

Precisely. Which means that our gear and supplies then has to be transported cross-country in a nation where we have no prepared staging points, supply dumps, command and control posts and so forth. When you're doing an amphibious landing, your ships can function in that sort of capacity until you've set up local facilities. When you're operating in an allied NATO country, that sort of stuff is prepared in advance. When you're at home, you can work off your own ones and comandeer whatever you need locally.

Whereas for Iraq, everything was sort of thrown together on the fly. There were some Gulf War leftovers that helped out (we knew the geography and suchlike), but we were essentially trying to move our men and supplies cross-country without adequate mechanisation or air transport for that sort of deployment. When your supply dumps are a short drive away from your port, stuff can be shipped in, sorted, and distributed with reasonable efficiency. When it has to cross another country first, it all starts getting horribly complicated, and you need a much greater logistical strength to carry the same amount of supplies and troops (more trucks, more fuel and parts for those trucks, etc).

If we'd had a year to plan it, I don't doubt it would have been easily managed, but with the resources to hand at the time, it was a strain. Unlike America, our default transport and logistical capacities are maintained at a much lower tempo, and centred primarily around what the fleet can carry/provide or local NATO facilities, as opposed to on the principle of fighting ground wars at a distance from the fleet. If we'd been fighting against the Russkis in Northern Europe, our troops would have been perfectly provided for. Even another Falklands would have been easier in an immediate logistical sense (if not in the longer term).

The Army's duty is to obey the government having been assured they are not being given illegal orders to go to war.

One of the facets of the Iraq war was the way the Attorney General at first said he thought the war would not be legal, but Blair somehow managed to persuade him to review the case and eventually he came up with a formula to say it was legal.

The British Army would be prosecuted for war crimes in a fully legal war also. There have been a number of war crimes trials of British soldiers from Iraq.

Blair ought not to have to go before the ICC. The British establishment should deal with him, but it will never happen.

Some of Blair's rot was a continuation of some of Maggie's policies (degradation of the Civil Service, and centralisation of power to Westminster.) Blair added a new style of government by presidential committee and this has been carried on by Cameron through the instrument of the Prime Minister's Office.

There ought to be some serious constitutional review of all this.