The then British envoy to Baghdad, John Sawyers, wrote a string of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 describing U.S. failures in the aftermath of the invasion.

With remarkable candor, he branded the U.S. post-war administration, led by retired general Jay Garner, "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth."

The documents, obtained by Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor, authors of "Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," also reveal military alarm that Britain might have been "seduced" into something it would come to regret. In a memo in summer 2003, Maj. Gen. Albert Whitley, the most senior British officer with the U.S. land forces, expressed his fear that the U.S.-led coalition was in danger of losing the peace.

"We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret. Is strategic failure a possibility? The answer has to be 'yes'," he concluded.

Sawyers, who is currently on a shortlist to be the next British ambassador to Washington, revealed an uncompromising view of the administration led by Garner in a memo entitled "Iraq: What's Going Wrong," written on May 11.

The document -- sent to Blair's key advisers, Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell and Head of Press Alistair Campbell -- listed a series of failings which were causing the coalition to lose the initial support of ordinary Iraqis.

Describing Garner's outfit, he wrote: "No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis." The forthcoming arrival of Paul Bremer, the U.S. diplomat who replaced Garner, was "not a day too soon," he added.

Sawyers identified a particular U.S. army unit, the Third Infantry Division, as "a big part of the problem" in Baghdad. They were unwilling to leave their heavily armored vehicles or to learn new techniques, he said, reporting an incident witnessed by British Paratroopers in which a U.S. tank responded to "harmless" rifle fire into the air from a residential apartment block by unleashing three tank rounds into the building. Every civilian who approached a U.S. checkpoint was treated as a potential suicide bomber, he continued, concluding: "Frankly, the Third Infantry Division need to go home.

"The military culture in the capital needs to change," Sawyers added.

He urged Washington to take immediate action, writing "the clock is ticking."

Reconstruction efforts were inadequate, he said, with Bechtel, the main U.S. civilian contractor, moving "far too slowly." There had been a failure to deal with health hazards, he said, noting that 40 percent of Baghdad's waste was pouring into the Tigris River untreated.

Sawyers also called for a clear policy on dealing with former Baath party members -- an area in which Garner's administration had made "mistakes."

Both Sawyers and General Whitley viewed as one of the gravest errors the decision by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, to reduce troop levels after the initial invasion.

He suggested sending a British battalion, the 16th Air Assault Brigade, to Baghdad to plug the gap. But despite U.S. enthusiasm for the plan, it was rejected by Downing Street.

Sawyers' assessment in the memo was echoed by Whitley, who was heavily involved in planning for Phase IV, the military jargon for the post-war nation-building stage. In an extraordinarily blunt memorandum written in summer 2003, Whitley wrote that while Gen. Franks took credit for the success of the initial invasion, he appeared disinterested in problems of the post-war phase. "I am quite sure Franks did not want to take ownership of Phase IV," he added.

At the heart of Whitley's assessment was his conclusion that Washington's unflinching belief in the righteousness of its actions had caused it to neglect to properly plan for negative consequences.

Phase IV "did not work well" because the focus of U.S. planners had been on the invasion, he wrote. "There was a blind faith that Phase IV would work. There was a failure to anticipate the extent of the backlash or mood of Iraqi society."

He continued: "Phase IV was based on hope, the supposition that just because this was a liberation then all was going to be fine, but even Garner expected a backlash. But no one was made responsible for dealing with it."

Three years on, as insurgency and anarchy continues to engulf Iraq, such revelations will fuel claims that the nation's prospects have been all but irreparably damaged by the devastating failures of the post-war period.

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