For nearly five years now, we have been following the serpentine twists and turns of defence politics, initially charting the UK's progress towards European defence integration, with a very strong interest in equipment and procurement matters, and then, inceasingly, the progress of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In a way we could not even have begun to imagine when we started, all these issues are intimately related. Drawing all the separate threads together, however, has been a complex and time-consuming affair. Only now that we have done so are we able to tell the story of how the first two led inexorably and inevitably to the defeat of the British Army in Iraq.
In a seven-part analysis - which we will post on Defence of the Realm over this and the next six days - we will tell the story as it unfolded, starting with the political machinations which set off the process.
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