British general slams U.S. policy in Iraq

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. plans for handling Iraq after the 2003 invasion were "fatally flawed", a retired British general said, adding that the U.S. administration had refused to listen to British concerns about postwar planning.

Major General Tim Cross said he had talked to former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before the invasion about the need to have international support and enough troops on the ground to reconstruct Iraq.

"He didn't want to hear that message. The U.S. had already convinced themselves that Iraq would emerge reasonably quickly as a stable democracy," Cross told the Sunday Mirror.

"Anybody who tried to tell them anything that challenged that idea -- they simply shut it out," Cross, the most senior British officer involved in planning post-war Iraq, added.

His comments echoed those of General Mike Jackson, head of the British army during the invasion, who was quoted by The Daily Telegraph on Saturday as describing Rumsfeld's approach as "intellectually bankrupt".

The unusually outspoken comments by former top military men follow weeks of commentary, mainly in the U.S. press, suggesting British forces have failed in southern Iraq and are set to flee.

Defence analyst Charles Heyman told Reuters the criticism was surfacing "because everybody realises this is now a failed policy and they are all casting around for scapegoats".

"Why didn't someone resign at the time and say this is foolish and foolhardy?" he said.