Iraq. Riley served as Colonel of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, from 2006 to 2007. On 18 December 2007, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and appointed deputy commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. He was awarded the NATO Meritorious Service Medal by the Secretary-General of NATO and, having been appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 2008 New Year Honours, he transferred to the reserve on 15 September 2009. On 14 December 2009, Riley gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry, in which he stated that British troops had not expected to be faced with an insurgency and also defended the decision to disband the Iraqi Army after the invasion. Then, in February 2011, he gave evidence at the trial of Radovan Karadžić at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on the incident in May 1995 when his troops had been held in captivity. Later life Riley was appointed Director General and Master of the Royal Armouries, Britain's national collection of arms and armour, early in September 2009. Subsequently, he was appointed Visiting Professor in War Studies at King's College London. Riley joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2012. He said he "believed passionately that we had to regain our national sovereignty, the control of our laws and our borders, and escape the unelected, unaccountable tyranny of the EU Commission." He later left the party, arguing it had "lost its way" and stating that he disagreed with the views of those who had taken charge at the time. Riley is on the advisory board of Veterans for Britain, an organisation with the aim "to put forward the Defence and Security arguments for the UK to vote to leave the European Union" and following the referendum to "Support Her Majesty's Government in the task of restoring full sovereign control to all aspects of the defence of the Realm in accordance with that mandate of the people." On 19 January 2021, Riley re-joined UKIP, and was selected as the lead candidate for UKIP for the Mid and West Wales region of the Senedd for the 2021 election. He was not elected to the Senedd, with UKIP getting 1.57% of this region's vote, having lost 86% of its 2016 support. As at 14 February 2022, he still appeared as a Spokesperson for UKIP and as at 9 August 2022