Melbourne: Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer today said failure of the United States to back up their gains with sufficient troop numbers after the initial invasion in Iraq allowed insurgency to develop there.

"I think in particular the Americans should have had more troops on the ground earlier than they did. The surge has been successful recently but that was very late in the piece, and I think it would have been better to have those troops a lot earlier," Downer was quoted as saying by the ABC.

Downer said, "While it was is right to get rid of Saddam Hussein but the US failed to back up their gains with sufficient troop numbers after the initial invasion."

The shortage of troops has been blamed for creating conditions which allowed an insurgency to develop in the months after the initial invasion.

"Obviously mistakes have been made, from time to time, during the five years," he said.

Source : PTI