IN the cool grey light of a summer morning, the impact and implications of the Chilcot Report are being digested across the media. Perhaps the most common theme is surprise that this quietly damning analysis is not the whitewash that some were expecting although that is not stopping many of those implicated in the failures presenting their excuses.

It is still too early to be able to really understand all of the detail and the nuances in the 2.6 million words, but there are some key themes that are important not just in themselves but as issues that need to be addressed by the UK Government.

Much has been made of the failures in intelligence. In the detail these are the very sort of failures that are not uncommon in the history of intelligence, collection and analysis but which processes, practices and procedures should limit. At its heart, it appears that the intelligence community had a built in bias that weapons of mass destruction existed and therefore credence was given to those sources that supported this position.

Indeed, some of those sources simply recognised the need for confirmatory information and made it up for a price. This inherent bias was then reinforced by the JIC assessment process which is designed to be independent being suborned to support policy decisions. This must never be allowed to happen again.

Less explicit in the report is the recognition that what is really required is not simply secret intelligence but understanding gained from the broadest range of sources.

The focus on weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s security apparatus meant that the broader understanding of the linkages and fissures in Iraqi society were not well understood.

Coupled with a naive belief in a form of democratic peace theory that suggested that removing the dictator would immediately lead to a functioning democracy and a peaceful Iraq, this failure of understanding lead directly to the conflict that still continues in the region today. Chilcot does not so much argue that removing Saddam was wrong as that doing it in such an ill-considered way was inevitably doomed to failure.

In this, Chilcot makes a critical observation about overstating the positive impacts of military action and understating the associated risks. In what feels like a disturbing re-statement that it was the timetables for military mobilisation that contributed to the outbreak of the First World War, he explicitly highlights that the military timetable must not drive wider diplomatic activity. Having deployed forces into the Gulf as part of an effort to coerce Saddam into complying with UN Security Council resolutions, the fact that maintaining them there in the longer term was going to be challenging contributed to the drive for a military solution in early 2003.

All of this points to problems with political-military decision making both in the UK and the US. The UK-US relationship will be addressed further on but it is essential to recognise the failures in Whitehall.

Chilcot highlights the problems with getting “ground-truth” from Iraq to the senior decision-makers. This reflects the prevailing culture in government where the delivery of bad news could ultimately be career limiting. Thus there was a tendency for reporting to be watered down as it passed through the various levels in a dangerous version of the game of Chinese whispers. These problems were reinforced by a fragmented approach across government with a lack of coherence between the key government departments.

CHILCOT places great faith in the Stabilisation Unit, the joint MoD/FCO/DFID organisation that arose out of the recognition of the post-conflict failures in Iraq as the key to dealing with some of these issues. However, whilst it has delivered some significant improvements and has been staffed by some excellent people, it remains under-resourced and the commitment of all three departments to it can be questioned.

These failings to work effectively across government are particularly apparent in post-conflict situations. Chilcot prevaricates unnecessarily on the failure to plan and prepare for the aftermath of the invasion in suggesting that to do so might not have prevented the conflict that subsequently arose.

While it is clearly not possible to prepare for every eventuality a better understanding of the social, political, economic and cultural context of Iraq would undoubtedly have contributed to a better understanding of the implications of the UK taking responsibility for the four southern provinces as well as more effective approaches to de-Baathification and security sector reform.

As Chilcot highlights, it is not appropriate to simply impose Western models on the military, police and intelligence organisations but rather they need to recognise the views and aspirations of local populations.

On a positive note, UK government supported security sector reform programmes commonly now include an element of engaging with civil society.

While these failings and Chilcot’s recommendations are immensely valuable, perhaps the shadow that hangs over the whole report is the UK-US relationship. The so-called special relationship is generally portrayed as a positive thing and indeed it does have many virtues.

However, in the case of the invasion of Iraq and in particular the post-invasion period it appears to have been a significant part of the problem. The failure to convince the US administration to consider post-invasion planning contributed directly to the aftermath. The lack of any meaningful influence in the Coalition Provisional Authority and a general unwillingness to criticise compounded the problems highlighted previously with de-Baathification and security sector reform.

Chilcot is correct when he asserts that in the future where the UK is the junior partner in a coalition it must be prepared to withdraw its contribution if it is felt that the strategic approach will not deliver the objectives agreed at the outset.

Hopefully, this is just the beginning of considered reflection on what has been a long but clearly thorough and robust process.

The Chilcot Report’s recommendations and findings must be considered and adopted in the coming months.

However, rather than individuals seeking to justify decisions made at the time there should be reflection on what is needed to ensure that such catastrophic failings are not allowed to happen again.

Ewan Lawson is a Senior Research Fellow for Military Influence at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank