The Army commander in charge of the taking of Basra during the Iraq war has claimed invasion forces were under-resourced and unprepared.
Major General Graham Binns was speaking ahead of the report by Sir John Chilcot into the lead-up to the 2003 invasion, with former Prime Minister Tony Blair facing criticism over the war the current Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, describes as "illegal".
Maj Gen Binns, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade - the Desert Rats - during the taking of Basra in southern Iraq, also said the forces were not ready for the outcome.
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In an interview for BBC Panorama's Iraq: Final Judgement, tonight, he said: "I don’t think we had a coherent plan in the longer term and we hadn’t really as a coalition thought through how we were going to operate in the aftermath.
"We were inadequately prepared both physically and mentally for the aftermath of the war fighting."
Relatives had raised concerns over equipment including "Snatch" Land Rovers.
In answer to those claims presented again by reporter Jane Corbin, Maj Gen Binns, above, said: "It was the best that was available at the time.
"The vehicles that we were using, the Snatch were not up to the job.
"They didn’t have adequate levels of protection and we were slow to replace them and provide adequate protection to our people."
He continued: "We were simply not prepared for supporting the reconstruction of a city [Basra] this size.
"I think it was entirely the right thing to do at the time yeah.
"To remove the regime.
"I just don’t think we resourced it and had a plan that would to replace it with something else."
Hans Blix, above, the UN's former chief weapons inspector is also interviewed and asked if Mr Blair is "misrepresented the facts" on weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Blix said: "It did not ... what he said did not represent the reality."
Asked if Mr Blair was therefore lying Mr Blix said: "I never claimed that it was in bad faith. Many people bring themselves to believe something that they want to believe."
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However he agreed the facts had been "misrepresented".
He said: "I think Blair had a feeling that this was an evil regime and that it was a moral thing to do away with it.
"And I don’t think that’s an evil thought but I think it was a presumptuous thought that the UK and the US alone should do that."
Former International Development Secretary Clare Short, who resigned the Blair government post, is also interviewed and addresses the former Prime Minister's apology for the intelligence used to go to war being wrong.
She said: "Apologising for the intelligence being wrong is blaming the intelligence agencies.
"And it's a falsity because what was known which was very little indeed was then exaggerated way beyond to give this imminent threat, imminent threat to Britain.
"I think he'd [Tony Blair] made up his mind to be with Bush.
"And we were massaged and deceived to get us there when it was a manipulation of us, that is us, the parliament, the cabinet, British public opinion, American public opinion by people who were determined to take military action from the beginning."
Mr Blair said in an interview this week he is "accused of being a war criminal for removing Saddam Hussein - who was a war criminal".
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