The war began against the mantra, "time is running out" to tackle Saddam. It is now clear that US generals were urging delay to get more troops on the ground. Was this also the advice of Britain's generals to Tony Blair?

Time was running out, yet the coalition's political and military leaders had not prepared to manage the disruption created by the collapse of the old regime. Just this week the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, responded to criticism by explaining that as the regime had only just collapsed, we could only now plan what to do.

The lack of preparation for the aftermath of the war threatens to undermine the political opportunity created by the military victory. Unable or unwilling to restore order or fulfil their legal obligations to protect embassies, the US and the UK are now re-employing the same police that were torturing people just weeks ago. As one US-backed police general said in Baghdad this week: "We can do everything; the people know how powerful we are."

If the US and UK are slow in reacting, others are not. So far the mosque has been the main centre of civil society restraining the looting, and a variety of Islamic militias are reported to be filling the power vacuum in Kut, Najaf and Baquba.

The key reason given for the hurry to go to war was that Saddam was a danger to the world and might use weapons of mass destruction at any time. None of these weapons were used. There are three possible reasons: they did not exist; he chose not to fire them; or he could not get his orders implemented. If the first two are true then the key argument for going to war, and not waiting, has proved to be invalid. If the third is true, these weapons would have been found by the US forces as they overran the ammunition stocks of the Republican Guard artillery units.

The lesser charge still remains. Did Saddam have weapons of mass destruction? US generals Richard Myers and William Wallace have expressed their "disappointment" at not finding them - ironically adding in their defence that even the UN had not been able to find them.

The other stated reason for the attack was that invasion would prevent Saddam giving these weapons to terrorists. Already a myth is being created that plutonium has been unearthed when the UN could find nothing - in fact this was well known material under UN seal. With the dictator gone, someone broke the seals and stole material.

The US is now offering rewards for information on the weapons. I and many other analysts predicted that invasion was the best way to lose control of whatever remained in Iraq. US officials are starting to use strikingly similar arguments to Saddam's for their inability to produce them: the weapons, the records and the people who knew the truth were destroyed or disappeared.

We were told by Donald Rumsfeld that this would be a totally new kind of war. Within days, Pentagon officials began speaking of a "blue-collar" war as soldiers fought street battles through sandstorms.

The new kind of war turned out to be a very old kind of war. The key tactic was tank attack backed by artillery and airpower - a strategy first used by the British army in 1918 and perfected by Hitler's armies in their six-week campaign across France in 1940.

Had Iraqi forces blown up bridges the US would have been far slower in reaching Baghdad. If this failure was because Iraqi officers had been subverted, this would have been a spying coup in a tradition going back millennia. No revolution in military affairs here.

The illusion of a new kind of war was sustained by a media that insisted on talking about "pockets of resistance" and "paramilitary forces" when it is clear from officers in the field that thou sands of soldiers fought and died by their obsolete equipment. Several US soldiers remarked in interviews on the "balls" and "bravery" of the Iraqi defenders.

With the conventional war now won, was it true to say "the war went according to the plan"? A number of facts indicate this was not the case.

· Numerous soldiers said they were not told to expect resistance.

· Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the US army's 5th Corps, famously explained that this was not the enemy they had wargamed against.

· The US used almost all the 20,000 paratroops in the 101st and 82nd Airborne to protect its supply lines to Baghdad. This is a mission for military police and infantry. The paratroops should have been available to get to Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk and Mosul in the first, not the last week of war.

As the war entered its "sticky week" we heard time and again that "no plan survives first contact with the enemy". At Waterloo, Alamein, Trafalgar and the invasion of France in 1940 the victors' plan worked and that is why they won. This war was won with overwhelming force and adaptation.

The latest political truth emanating from George Bush and his officials is that in the "new political environment" other states will do as they are told - ignoring that in the run-up to war the Turks refused to be obedient for the first time in 60 years. The Saudis too are showing more, not less, independence and have given US forces notice to leave. The US assumes they will relocate to Iraq, but will the democratically expressed will of the Iraqi people include an invitation to set up US bases in their country?

Dan Plesch is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute

dplesch@rusi.org


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