A FORMER senior Army officer says he warned then Prime Minister Tony Blair there would be an insurgency shortly after Britain and the US invaded Iraq in 2003.

Lieutenant Colonel Chris Parker MBE, who lives near Shrivenham, was Chief of Staff of the 8,000-strong 7th Armoured Brigade in the Middle East.

He spoke out after Mr Blair defended the decision to go to war last week at the Chilcot Inquiry, which aims to identify lessons that can be learned from the conflict.

Lt Col Parker welcomed Mr Blair to Basra Palace during the Prime Minister’s visit to the Iraqi city at the end of May 2003, and gave him and his staff a briefing.

Lt Col Parker, who now works for an Iraqi oil exploration company, said Mr Blair and his spokesman Alastair Campbell seemed unaware of the risks an Iraqi insurgency posed to British troops.

He said: “I briefed Mr Blair and warned him that in a few weeks’ time things were going to get ‘hot’, because the Iraqis would see there was no improvement to their family life.

“The Army was being asked to run transport, economy and the health service in Basra and the whole infrastructure had collapsed.

“They didn’t seem interested in what I had to say and there was a chuckle from Alistair Campbell.

“I offered my hand out to see if anyone wanted to bet that there was not going to be an insurgency in a few weeks’ time and afterwards I was reprimanded for being rude to the Prime Minister.”

Speaking to the Oxford Mail from Dubai, Lt Col Parker said British troops were not properly equipped before the invasion.

He said: “I crossed the border with nine bullets and not more than a couple of magazines, and there was a lack of body armour.

“It was a horror show in terms of a lack of equipment.

“ Lives were lost because of that.We ought to be asking politicians to be accountable for what they do, and look back and learn from history.”

Lt Col Parker said it was right for Britain to go to war in Iraq in 2003.] He added: “I’m a practising Christian and we were morally right to do it – it was a disgrace what was happening to the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein.

“In 2005, I stood at the site of mass graves in southern Iraq. It was like the Nazis and morally that had to stop. I think the war was legal, technically.”

Ed Griffiths, secretary of the Oxford Stop the War Coalition, said he believed the Chilcot Inquiry had presented an establishment viewpoint.

He added: “More people were killed in the aftermath than during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Tony Blair and the Labour Government at the time should be held responsible, along with the US government.

“There were big protests in Oxford before the invasion and 40 coachloads of people went to the