Occupation Must End Soon, Says Gen Dannatt

[KashifAsrar]

UK army chief at war with Blair over Iraq

Occupation Must End Soon, Says Gen Dannatt
Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN

London: The head of the British Army has set off a political storm and inevitably discredited official foreign policy consensus by calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq “sometime soon” because their presence was “exacerbating” the worsening security situation in the invaded country.
The political bombshell dropped by General Richard Dannatt, who took over as army chief just a few weeks ago, is the highest-level military intervention on the touchy subject from within the US-UK coalition that controversially invaded Iraq in March 2003.
On Friday, Dannatt followed up a frank lengthy interview published in a British newspaper with an exhausting round of television and radio interviews to explain that he aimed to “speak up for what is right for the Army”. He said he did “not take back comments I’ve made about Iraq”. But he also insisted he was not in conflict with government policy. British PM Tony Blair has always refused to spell out a timetable for withdrawal of troops.
Opposition Liberal Democrat party leader Menzies Campbell said such an intervention by a senior military figure was “unprecedented” and Blair’s government had an “overwhelming obligation” to listen to him. But amid a raging storm that the British government and its armed forces were now publicly locked in an “ideas conflict” on Iraq, the army chief denied “a chasm” with Blair. Describing the political firestorm as a lot of “hooha”, Dannatt denied “there is a chasm between myself as head of the army and the PM”.
But the army chief continued to insist throughout the day that, “We (the UK) need to keep thinking about time because time is against us. Because time is money, time is particularly soldiers and soldiers’ lives, and we cannot go on forever.” British families who have lost military sons and daughters to the Iraq conflict cheered Dannatt’s comments and senior retired army officers hailed his bravery in telling the ugly truth.

 

[KashifAsrar]

Britain 'held hostage' by US policy
BRIAN BRADY

BRITAIN'S top soldier spoke out against the government's handling of the campaign in Iraq because he feared Britain was being "held hostage" by US policy in the region, friends claimed last night.

General Sir Richard Dannatt sparked a furious row over Tony Blair's foreign policy last week when he warned that British troops should leave Iraq soon because they were "exacerbating the security problems" there
Allies of Sir Richard last night claimed he had been expressing deep concerns shared by colleagues in the highest ranks of the military - and that the real target of his attack was Washington, not London.

"He believes we are being held hostage by American policy in a number of ways," said a senior army officer who served with Dannatt. "The Americans had not done enough planning for the peace that would follow the war-fighting phase.

"We have been the prisoners of American policy failures ever since. That is what a large proportion of our senior military officers think and it is what lies behind Sir Richard's comments."

Sir Richard is believed to favour focusing on the international effort in Afghanistan.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1526412006