Senior British officials supported the controversial decision to disband the Iraqi army following the occupation of Baghdad, the US head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has told the Chilcot inquiry.
In a detailed written submission, ambassador Paul Bremer dismissed claims that Saddam Hussein's forces could have been used to hold the disintegrating administration together.
His statement, posted on the Iraq inquiry website today, insists that the decision to demobilise was not a unilateral American ruling but was taken in consultation with Tony Blair's government in London. No British official argued for the preservation of the Iraqi army, Bremer said.
The rise of the Sunni-led insurgency has been blamed on the fact that former Iraqi army soldiers and officers grew resentful of their loss of status and incomes. That argument is one of the central themes of the post-conflict screen thriller Green Zone which was released this year.
"I would like to set the record straight on the decision about the Iraqi army," Bremer, who was head of the CPA from May 2003 to June 2004, told the inquiry.
"For more than three decades Saddam had used that army as an essential element of his brutal repression and terror against the Iraqi people. When it became clear that Iraq was losing the war, this army had 'self-demobilised'. Shia draftees by the thousands deserted their posts and went back to their villages, farms and families."
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