Chilcot report: Military too slow to react to deadly reality of Iraq

But despite the casualties they caused new Protected Patrol Vehicles (PPVs) were not ordered until 2006 and only then after ministers personally intervened.

The march to war had left little time to properly prepare three military brigades for deployment in Iraq, the report found.

By the time UK combat operations in the country ended six years later, 179 British military personnel would be dead and hundreds of others injured.

The chaos of the initial aftermath bred its own problems.

Brig Graham Binns, told the inquiry that the best way to stop the widespread looting he witnessed immediately after British troops arrived, without any clear instructions on what to do, “was just to get to a point where there was nothing to loot”.

But the report is also damning in its conclusions about the planing and preparations carried out by the MoD and ministers.

The secrecy surrounding the build up to the war left little room to secure new equipment from the defence industry.

The risks involved in the operation were also not properly identified nor fully explained to ministers.

The situation rapidly resulted in shortfalls in crucial equipment, including helicopters and surveillance technology.

The problem was exacerbated by the structure of the MoD.

Despite the military’s chain of command system it was unclear “which person or department within the MoD had responsibility for identifying and articulating capability gaps”.

To add to the problems, a backlog began to develop in inquests for troops who died.

And the situation would only get worse.

The UK Government was already fighting on two fronts, in Iraq and Afghanistan, even through it "did not have the resources to do so".

The UK’s resources were pushed to the limit with no backup, described as a “high level of risk”, after troops were sent to Afghanistan's notorious Helmand Province.

The brutal war in that part of Afghanistan stripped vital equipment from Iraq, including helicopters.

At home there was also confusion.

For four years “there was no clear statement of policy setting out the acceptable level of risk to UK forces and who was responsible for managing that risk”.

The lack of armoured vehicles to protect UK troops "should not have been tolerated", the report found.

IEDs were being used against British troops within weeks of the invasion.

Within months they were becoming more sophisticated and more deadly.

But the MoD was already stretched, with high numbers of armoured vehicles still needed on the streets of Northern Ireland.

A short-term stop-gap solution was deployed but was still in place years later.

The report found that the "MoD was slow in responding to the developing threat in Iraq from IEDs.

"The range of protected mobility options available to commanders in (the British controlled area) was limited.

"Although work had begun before 2002 to source an additional PPV, it was only ordered in July 2006 following ministerial intervention."

Damningly the report found that the problem was not not one of funding.

Instead military chiefs concentrated instead on future plans to build better vehicles, at the cost of dealing with problems on the ground.

At the same time shortages were developing in other equipment.

By 2004 Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the Air Staff, warned that the support helicopters would be “seriously stretched” by increased involvement in Afghanistan.

His prediction was to come true.

By the second half of 2005 reports from Iraq increasingly stressed the need for more helicopters.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the then chief of the General Staff, said in October that year that the fleet was “creaking badly”.

By December, senior staff were warning “the simple fact is that we need more helicopters (and aircrew) urgently”.

The following year military chiefs acknowledged that operations had at times been constrained by a lack of helicopter support.

As late as 2007 the Defence Secretary Des Browne had an exchange with General Sir Timothy Granville Chapman, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, about equipment shortfalls.

When Gen Granville Chapman suggested that options would be considered the next month “Mr Browne responded: “No: it should happen tomorrow!”

His comments “prompted a review of what short term relief could be offered to improve helicopter availability”.

At other times, however, military’s “can-do attitude” meant the truth was not heard by ministers or military bosses.

The report concludes: “The MoD was not fully aware of the situation on the ground during the conflict.”

Worse, some who were appeared to have decided that little could be achieved and instead turned their attention elsewhere.

“Throughout 2004 and 2005 it appears that senior members of the armed forces reached the view that little more could be achieved [in Iraq] … and it would make more sense to concentrate on Afghanistan.”

In the end, there was humiliation.

“By 2007, militia dominance in (the Iraqi city of) Basra … led to the UK exchanging detainees released for an end to the targeting of its forces.

"It was humiliating that the UK reached a position in which an agreement with a militia group which had been actively targeting UK forces was considered the best option available.”

"The UK military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success," the report concludes.

The report found that some of the problems had been anticipated by Mr Blair.

He appeared to acknowledge the risks in a letter to US president George Bush before the invasion.

He stressed the need for renewed "focus and effort" in Afghanistan, which British and US troops had invaded the year before Iraq.

But some of the problems still exist, the report warns.

The UK Government "knowingly" exceeded all its own planning assumptions when it came to the Armed Forces, trying for years to do too much with too little.

The document recommends that in future there should be a "rigorous" analysis of the potential problems caused by stretching service personnel to such an extent.

The report also found that no-one in the MoD has yet to take primary responsibility for identifying capability gaps.