Riley defended the decision to disband the Iraqi Army after the invasion , saying that it had effectively " disbanded itself " . However , he told the inquiry that " he had not ... expected to be faced with an insurgency " and that the forces " did have to go through a process of relearning . And we did it on the job " . However , Riley went on to say that new troops arriving in the country were " " much better prepared " Greenstock , who also appeared before the inquiry on 27 November , told the inquiry that he believed the whole campaign in Iraq had been " rushed " and lacked international input , saying " this was clearly too rushed an exercise for the size of the task we found on the ground ; a task which some people had been predicting would be as difficult as it was " . During the course of his evidence , Greenstock was interrupted by Sir John Chilcot , the inquiry chairman , and , for the first , the inquiry went into private session and public broadcasting , on a one-minute delay , was suspended Sawers , who also appeared before the inquiry on 10 December , claimed that the British government may have had " second thoughts " if the level of violence after the war and the attraction of Iraq to al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists had been foreseen , quoting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak 's comment that the war would unleash " 100 Bin Ladens " , though he concluded that Iraq was a " better place " in 2009 than it was in 2003 Drummond 's evidence focused predominantly around the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 which , he said , had " a very serious impact " on the rebuilding efforts as most UN personnel evacuated Iraq in its aftermath , with Drummond going on to say " I do n't think we realised at the time quite how serious it was going to be , because we had envisaged a major role for the UN in this process " Patey , who previously appeared before the inquiry on 24 November , told the inquiry that ambitions for post-war reform and reconstruction of Iraq were " probably higher than the ability to deliver " and recalled writing " the prospect of descent into civil war ... was probably more likely than the transition to a stable Iraq unless certain things happened " and concluded that " what could be delivered on Powerpoint could n't necessarily be delivered on Earth . That 's something that struck me in my time there " Wall , a division commander in Iraq in 2003/4 , spoke to the inquiry about a controversial claim that British troops were " sitting ducks " at Basra palace and of the boredom of young soldiers in the drawdown of the operation when troops moved from Basra Palace to the airport Prentice offered evidence about relations between the United Kingdom and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Day gave evidence to the inquiry regarding the negotiation of a ceasefire between British forces and the Mahdi Army militia group McDonald gave evidence that the US was concerned at the British plans for early withdrawal from Basra and , as a result , the British government " adjusted our plans in accordance with our discussions with them " and the scale and speed of the withdrawal was altered
bombing
Canal Hotel bombing
List of witnesses of the Iraq Inquiry