We were over-optimistic about regeneration, Blair adviser says- Gaurdian UK

[go west young man]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2167834,00.html

America and Britain failed in the reconstruction of Iraq and were over-optimistic about the ease with which a new society would be formed, Sir David Manning, the outgoing British ambassador to Washington and Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser during the Iraq war, has admitted.
Sir David insisted that Mr Blair was not told by President George Bush that the defence department led by Donald Rumsfeld, rather than the US state department, would be given responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq. The decision was taken only two months before the invasion and involved the rejection of months of pre-war planning by the state department and British Foreign Office.