Procurement Intelligence Unit

One of the most striking features of the UK's ongoing Iraq inquiry isn't so much the revelations about the cosy relationship enjoyed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-US President George W. Bush, nor even the dodgy dossier, which contained 'facts' relating to Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons programme, rather the increasingly central role that procurement has assumed in proceedings.

A succession of ministers and civil servants have testified in front of the hearing and a growing number have blamed procurement blunders for the mess that UK troops found themselves in after toppling the former dictator.

Former defence secretary John Hutton even went as far as to call the attempt to purchase a new generation of army vehicles (the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES)) a "grim episode" and placed the blame squarely at procurement's door. He believed the run-up to the war represented a "procurement shambles".

Of course, it would be disingenuous to blame procurement for all the UK's failings in Iraq – and few are likely to do so – but what is clear that the lack of a coherent procurement strategy in the run-up to the war cost UK troops dear.

"If we had made it on the original timescale for the system, some of the equipment and kit would have been available for those in Iraq and certainly for those in Afghanistan," said Hutton.

A key mitigating factor in procurement's favour is most definitely the fact that, as Blair protested during his testimony, there was no timetable for war – meaning that procurement hands were tied from the very beginning.

But what this serves to illustrate is that procurement, even at the highest level of government, needs to be flexible enough to deal the challenges it is thrown and the hands it is dealt, however unfavourable.

Lord Drayson, the UK's procurement reform minister, is in the process of drawing up proposals to ensure that the mistakes made in the run-up to the war in the Iraq aren't repeated, and there's little doubt that a major overhaul of defence procurement will follow next year's strategic defence review.

That, however, will be of little comfort to those families who lost loved ones in the Middle East and those soldiers who were left fighting a hostile enemy with substandard equipment.

Rarely has an event of such global significance illustrated procurement's importance as effectively as the Iraq war. And although procurement errors in the corporate world can often cost a company dear, what the Iraq inquiry has shown is that defence procurement planning often means the difference between life and death.