Baghdad // An Iraqi parliamentary investigation found ex-premier Nouri Al Maliki and 35 others responsible for ISIL overrunning second city Mosul, in a report being sent for possible legal action.
While various top commanders and political leaders have long been viewed as responsible for the extremist group’s disastrous takeover of the city, the report is the first time they have been named officially.
Investigative committee member MP Abdulrahim Al Shammari said that Mr Al Maliki, who was prime minister from 2006 until last year, was among those named, as did another member who declined to be identified.
The inclusion of Mr Al Maliki’s name was a source of controversy on the committee, with his Dawa party pushing for it to be omitted.
The report detailing findings of the investigation, which has yet to be publicly released, has been presented to parliament speaker Salim Al Juburi, who said it will be sent to the prosecutor general for legal action.
“No one is above the law and the questioning of the people, and the judiciary will punish those” responsible, Mr Al Juburi said.
ISIL launched a devastating offensive on June 9 last year, overrunning Mosul the next day and then sweeping through large areas north and west of Baghdad.
Multiple Iraqi divisions collapsed during the initial assault in the north, in some cases abandoning weapons and other equipment the extremists then used to further their drive.
Mr Al Maliki is widely viewed as having exacerbated sectarian tensions between the country’s Shiite majority and the Sunni Arab minority.
Widespread discontent among Sunni Arabs, who say they were marginalised and targeted by Mr Al Maliki’s government, played a major role in worsening the security situation in Iraq, culminating in the disastrous ISIL offensive.
He also appointed commanders based on personal loyalty rather than competence, and was commander-in-chief of the armed forces during two years in which the Iraqi military did not carry out necessary training, leading to a decline in skills.
Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s office announced that he had cleared the way for the military prosecution of senior commanders responsible for a more recent military disaster in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad.
ISIL seized Ramadi in May, after government forces had held out against militants there for more than a year.
Mr Al Abadi approved “decisions of the investigative commission on the withdrawal of the Anbar Operations Command and units attached to it from the city of Ramadi”, his office said.
Those include “referring a number of the leaders to the military judiciary for leaving their positions without orders and contrary to instructions [and] despite the issuance of a number of orders not to withdraw”, it said.
Mr Al Abadi previously said that forces in Ramadi “had to resist, and if they had resisted, we would not have lost Ramadi”.
And a senior British military officer, Brigadier Christopher Ghika, said the city “was lost because the Iraqi commander in Ramadi elected to withdraw”.
“In other words, if he had elected to stay, he would still be there today,” Brigadier Ghika said.
*Agence France-Presse