Recommendation 38

It is impossible for us to draw conclusions from the fragmentary reporting and speculation currently available in the public domain. Nevertheless, the Government must establish where the root of the problem lay, assessing whether it was one or a combination of: • an intelligence failure—that is, a failure to gather the intelligence necessary to form a sufficiently accurate understanding of the situation on the ground; • an assessment and analysis failure—that is, a failure to interpret the available information in a way that provided a sufficiently accurate understanding of the situation on the ground; • a failure, including by the Afghanistan NSIG, to marshal the vast knowledge and resources on Afghanistan within the UK Government in a way that supported effective ministerial decision-making; • groupthink on behalf of Ministers and/or senior officials; • a reluctance by Ministers and/or senior officials to engage fully with the realities of information presented to them and to challenge their own assumptions accordingly; and/or • a failure of diplomacy to bring forward an alternative NATO coalition on the ground. The NSA should outline his initial assessment of these matters in the confidential