Britain should have taken far more extensive and decisive action in Libya to prevent the country sliding into chaos after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the former chief of the defence staff has said, following the release of a damning report into the UK’s intervention.

Lord Richards, who sat on the national security council when the decision was taken to protect Benghazi from advancing Libyan forces controlled by Gaddafi, said it was debatable whether intervention had been in the UK’s national interest, the Guardian reported.

Richards said the claim by the foreign affairs select committee report that the aim to protect Benghazi had been achieved within 24 hours was “a little bit overoptimistic. We had to stabilise the military situation, so there was always a chance that Gaddafi would buy time and come back into Benghazi”.

The report, which said the failure was ultimately the responsibility of the then prime minister David Cameron, said what started as a “limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change by military means”.

Richards said he had raised doubts over whether regime change was the desired outcome during national security council meetings, but in practice, there was little that defence or intelligence chiefs could do within the structure at the time to force the prime minister to change his mind.

Source: MENA